Effects of Suffering

Rigney points to three particular effects of suffering. They are:

• Guilt. When the calamity occurs, when the pain and loss run deep, when the sorrow doesn’t go away, there can be, in the back of the mind, a low-grade guilt. “If I really trusted God, if I really loved him above all else, I wouldn’t hurt this way. It wouldn’t cut me this deep.” And the effect of that guilt is to push us away from the God of all comfort. We isolate ourselves from him.
• Isolation. And not only from him. There arises between the sufferer and the world an invisible blanket. People and relationships are hard when we’re hurting. They don’t know what to say. We don’t know what to say. Everyone feels embarrassed and awkward. We can’t speak of it. We can’t not speak of it. Best to just go our separate ways.
• Anger and frustration. Anger at God. Frustration at the world. This anger at God can increase both the guilt and the isolation. C.S. Lewis warns us that the real danger for many of us at this point is not that we would cease to believe in God. Rather, it’s that we come to believe such dreadful things about him. We believe in God but he has become a horror to us. We can’t get back at him for what he has done or allowed, so we believe awful things about him since we can do that. The result? We spiral into deeper despair and bitterness and grief.

Purposes in Suffering

Rigney points out that suffering, whether of loss or of longing, is the ultimate comparative test for our joy in God and his gifts. It forces us to put our money where our mouth is. We praise God but then curse him when we lose or never receive the things we want. Suffering tests whether God is supreme in our hearts and minds. It’s the comparative approach in action.

But what about integrated joy in God and in the things God provides? Integrated joy continues even in the absence of the gift. To see how, you have to remember that the heart of enjoying everything in God is soul expansion. The things of earth enlarge our minds and hearts so that we can know God more. And this soul expansion happens when the gift is present, and it can happen when the gift is absent.

Responses to Suffering

Rigney provides three responses we should have to suffering. They are:

• Press into the pain. We must not stand aloof and detached. We’re not Stoics. Instead, we need to grieve the way that people in the Bible grieved. Job, David, Asaph, and even Jesus all pressed into the pain. Sorrow is what love looks when love’s object is taken. The depth of the pain shows the value of what was lost. And the whole point of this book has been that the things of earth are unfathomably valuable because they are designed to bring us to God. And they can bring us to him, even when they are being taken by him.
• Press into the people. We must not isolate ourselves. It may hurt more. They may not know what to say. It may be embarrassing. In addition to the loss, we may have to endure the additional pain of being pitied. No one likes to be pitied. Yet, according to 2 Corinthians 1, we are one of the key ways God brings comfort. It’s our prayers that bring help. It’s our presence and words that bring comfort. But bringing comfort to others requires that we have received comfort ourselves and have the wisdom to know how to channel that comfort in ways that will actually help.
• Press into the Lord. In your sorrow, do not sin. Weep, wail, grieve, lament. Rage against this broken and cursed world and the evil powers that steal and kill and destroy. But never curse God. Don’t run from him. He is the only source of comfort. He is the God of all comfort. Press on to know him. Press hard into him. As surely as the coming of the dawn, he will respond.

The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory to be revealed. These light and momentary afflictions are working for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all. Nothing good will ever finally be lost. Earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal.

From Kevin:

These are great words and reminders. As I write, we are in Thanksgiving week. I know so many hurt and suffer in many ways. May these things help us put words to our sorrow over loss and longing. May we sorrow better even as we strive to maintain a grateful heart.