Audio Transcript
We talk often about suffering at Desiring God. Suffering saints send emails to us just about daily — dark, wrenching emails describing life pain in vivid detail. Those emails to the podcast are not accidents. Suffering has become a major theme for us, especially suited to Christian Hedonism as, Pastor John, you have developed it over the decades. God’s design in our suffering fits our theology. It fits our employee team, too. I’m thinking of John Knight, a man so beloved here. So, we talk a lot about how God uses suffering to wean our hearts off this world so that we can find greater delight in him. That’s how it’s supposed to work, building our faith stronger. But often that’s not how it works at first. Today on Ask Pastor John: How a crushed faith comes home.
A listener named Rachel asks the question. “Hi, Pastor John. In your devotional Suffering That Crushes Faith, you explain that suffering can drive us either toward or away from God. You write: ‘If you think your suffering is pointless, or that God is not in control, or that he is whimsical or cruel, then your suffering will drive you from God, instead of driving you from everything but God — as it should. So, it is crucial that faith in God’s grace includes the faith that he gives grace through suffering.’
“What if suffering has already driven someone away from the Lord? What if, because of suffering, you feel distant from him, as if he is angry, disappointed, or no longer hears or cares for you? It’s a frightening place to be. How do I come back from this? How do I begin to believe that the Lord is with me, an ever-present help in times of trouble, faithful, loving, and caring? Is it too late for someone like me whose faith has been crushed, not strengthened, by suffering? I felt your devotional was a good warning, but for those of us in this position it leaves a sense of hopelessness without guidance on how suffering can draw us closer to God and strengthen our faith in the end.”
I am so glad Rachel has asked this question, because I would hate to leave the impression from that devotional that our experience of suffering at the front end is the only time it can be redemptive or destructive. If I left that impression, I certainly don’t want to, so let me clarify that.
Yes, when suffering strikes, it can drive you to God or it can drive you from God — that’s true, but neither of those has to be the end of the story. Some who turned to God in their suffering may later make shipwreck of their faith (1 Timothy 1:19). And some who turned away from God in their suffering may later be turned back by that very extension of suffering in their lives to God, the God of patience, the God of hope (Romans 15:5, 13).
So, let’s take a few biblical examples so Rachel can see — we all can see — it’s not just my opinion, but God’s plan for some of his beleaguered people to come back after turning away.
Driven Home
The first one that came to my mind was the prodigal son. Now, of course, it’s not suffering that drove him away at first, I know that. It was just sheer rebellious love for the world, not love for his father. So, he takes his inheritance, and he goes to a far country, and he squanders it in dissolute living, and then the suffering comes. Now, what’s his first response? It’s not to go back to his father. His first response is to get a job and try to fix the problem. “When he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country” (Luke 15:14–15).
“When suffering strikes, it can drive you to God or from God — but neither of those has to be the end of the story.”
That’s his first move: I’m going to fix this and get back on my happy track. And they sent him into the fields to feed pigs. “And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything” (Luke 15:15–16). He’s miserable, and he’s miserable because he didn’t go back to his father right away. The suffering didn’t turn him home immediately. And then he says, “I’ll get myself out of this suffering” — myself — “with feeding these pigs, put some money in the bank, get back to my good life.” And it didn’t work, so what happened?
“When he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father’” (Luke 15:17–18). His misery, mingled with the grace of God, woke him up to the foolishness of trying to solve his suffering on his own, and so his suffering drives him back to the Father. And my point is it didn’t happen right away, and it doesn’t happen right away for a lot of people. People are driven away from God by their suffering, and then they realize there is no hope in this suffering without God.
Sheltering Hand
And then there’s Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law. She’s driven out of her land by famine, her husband dies, her two sons die, one of her daughters-in-law returns to her people, and only Ruth is left, and so the suffering drives them home, back to Bethlehem (Ruth 1:1–19). But what does Naomi say as she arrives?
She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi [which means pleasant]; call me Mara [which means bitter], for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (Ruth 1:20–21)
This is not looking to the Lord for help in her suffering; this is a sinking in bitterness. The suffering did not at first drive Naomi to God. It drove her to complain against God, but that’s not the end of the story. The faithfulness of Ruth, the faithfulness of Boaz, and God’s mercy to Naomi bring her to herself, and the story ends with Naomi hearing these words: “Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel!’” (Ruth 4:14). So, finally, Naomi could see the good hand of God in all that she had been through — an amazingly good hand — and what incredible things he had in store for her and her lineage.
Brought to Repentance
And finally, Job. He’s an interesting character because he’s wonderful, he’s a good man, and he’s a complex person. When his possessions and his family were destroyed, he set a beautiful example for us. “Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.” And he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:13–21).
But when the suffering went on and on (the boils were horrible), he lost his peace, and he said some terrible things about God, that God was his enemy, which was not true (Job 2:7; 13:24; 19:11). So, God intervened, and he brought Job again to repentance, and he put his hand on his mouth (Job did), and he worshiped again (Job 40:4–5; 42:5–6). So, Job is an example of responding well to suffering and then responding badly to suffering and then responding well again after a season.
The Father Awaits
And Rachel, I’m sure you know people who are alive today who provide contemporary examples of this very thing. One thinks, for example, of Joni Eareckson Tada, who has written her own story about her broken neck and her paralysis that did not send her flying immediately with trust to an all-sovereign God. That came later, through wonderful discoveries of God’s grace and important people in her life. My friend John Knight, who works at Desiring God, would not mind me telling you that, when his son Paul was born two and a half decades ago without any eyes, it sent John into a deep season of wrestling with God, pulling back from church and God’s people. And then, after a season, God gloriously steps in and causes John Knight to become one of the most articulate spokesmen that I know of on behalf of the sovereignty of God and his love for people with disabilities.
So, Rachel, please be encouraged that, no matter how torturous your pilgrimage into suffering has been, no matter how crushed your faith may have felt, the word from God for you is that there is a way home: “He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14).
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:11–12)
That’s who awaits us when we turn toward home.
