When your suffering makes ‘all things new’ for somebody else...

The perennial question of life is “what’s the purpose in suffering?”  If only there’s a purpose to suffering, we have a reason to endure it.

It is a much vaunted and yet thoroughly vexing question.  But the more we hold out hope that there IS a purpose in our suffering, the more we can hold our own in lament, not trying to change our circumstances, but learning to survive them, the more we realise this purpose.

There is something to be learned
in the present within our suffering, 
just as there is something to be received 
in the future for our suffering.

In the present tense, we’re able to gain access to certain divine acquisitions that we would not have obtained otherwise.  Such as, peace for situations beyond our control.  How can I say that?  “Peace for situations beyond our control.”  I say it just like this, because there IS such a thing, and this is the peace that transcends our understanding.

It is the biblical peace of Philippians chapter 4.  It is the radical reformation of our worldview.  It is the comprehensive overcoming that we always felt was within our grasp, but this came only with the benefit of hindsight, having attained this peace that transcends our understanding.  The vast and enormous paradox is that we don’t get this hindsight if we haven’t already been through hell.

But this article is about the future tense, to breed hope in the one who is struggling now.

The struggle is worth it.  The struggle is evidence of others’ struggles before we came to this place.  It’s like we have arrived at a particular road along the journey, only to find the signs that others have been here too.

There is an immense comfort being connected with others along the journey, especially those who have transcended the struggle.  They, themselves, are our witnesses of validation.

Those who have been where you’re at right now, those who have trekked this arduous track, where you see the tyre grooves of consternation and difficulty, despairing at the very points you find despairing, have transcended their bitterness, and show you a way to hope notwithstanding your present sense of defeat.

Those who have been to defeat are the very 
people who show us how to overcome.

What suffering shows us most of all is how to resource ourselves for the present moment, and for the journey ahead.  Suffering centralises our effort, and it makes us efficient in terms of what we do.  We realise we don’t have endless energy.  We therefore quarantine resources, and suffering teaches us to not linger on the problem, but search for the solution.

Think about what you are going to bring to the person ahead of you who is only just coming into their season of staggering through hell.  You won’t be showing them problems, on the contrary, you will show them solutions.  Even if those solutions feel like they’re stuck in the problem.  This is apparent because perhaps you are being helped right now by someone who has been there, in that lamentable place, and that person isn’t a naysayer.  They’re an overcomer.  That’s because they had to learn how to overcome.  It’s not words but presence that gets us through.

Your suffering makes ‘all things new’ for somebody else.  The ‘somebody else’ in your future is a big part of your purpose right now.  The struggles you bear right now pay off in the future.  We see the purpose in suffering only from the wisdom of 20/20 hindsight.

Suffering’s just like an enforced savings plan, where you have no choice but to save because your income isn’t accessible.  Except what you’re saving is hope, and the currency is faith.  Then, years ahead, suddenly the term matures, and that good hope for recovery is realised.

It’s the person coming through behind us who will benefit from our wisdom after we’ve gotten through.  Just as it is that we benefited from the person who has invested in us in our period of suffering.  Those who have been there reach out their hand to help, like the good Samaritan, because that was what they knew was needed.