Suffering has meaning
Bread of adversity; Water of affliction
He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear by adversity. Job 36:15 (RSV)
He delivers in, or in the midst of, or amongst our suffering.
Elihu, the youngest of Job’s comforters, has said something quite insightful here.
He has not said God would deliver them from their suffering by taking it away.
But Elihu says that deliverance occurs in suffering.
How can that be?
We pray for deliverance from these things but God, in His power, knows how to deliver us while we are still suffering.
Only God could do that.
It can be stated that one thing is assured in our life and that is suffering, affliction, adversity, and death.
Not that we want it, but it comes because that is the reality of our present day world.
Our pastor quoted a verse in Isaiah 30 which struck a cord with me this week..
Isaiah 30:20 (RSV) And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.
Bread and water are both essential for life.
Is this verse saying that like bread, adversity is essential for life?
Is it saying that like water, affliction is essential for life?
If you are to grow in character, you need adversity. I
f you are to grow in patience, meekness, and caring, you need affliction.
It is not possible to grow in these areas by learning it in school or through books or imagining it. You need to experience it, personally.
But the rest of the verse says, in spite of these trials, our Teacher (God’s Holy Spirit) will be present with us.
We will see Him at work through the adversity or affliction. May be not during it, but most likely after it has passed.
Back to this verse in the Book of Job.
It could be interpreted that God does not consider suffering something to be ashamed of or shunned, but something He shares with humanity.
God does and is suffering because of humanity’s rejection of Him and the decay of His creation.
If He suffers, does He share all of Himself with us, even His suffering?
It reminds me of one gentleman in hospice who stated he did not want pain relievers because he wanted to experience the suffering like his Lord had experienced through Jesus’ life on earth. It was very hard on his family as he would cry out at times and at other times his confusion would make him less than cooperative.
As onlookers, we considered him foolish in not accepting medical help and continuing in suffering…
but who really were the foolish ones?
The patient or us?
He did not seek suffering as the lot of suffering was thrust upon him by a disease not his making, but he saw his suffering as something worthy of sharing with his Lord.
Atheists could see this as “glorifying suffering” as one panelist on a TV program stated to a Catholic priest.
The priest responded, “It is not glorifying suffering as much as seeing that suffering has a redemptive value.”
How true.
Could we not say that we worship a suffering Lord and if we want to be like Him, we should be willing to suffer as well?