Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. (NKJV)
It seems in this passage that Paul begins by delivering some rather bad news.
The "bad news" is that we will have tribulation. In fact, Paul describes the tribulation as "the sufferings of Christ abound[ing] in us." This is actually worse than it seems. The Greek is perisseuo (Strong’s G4052) and means "to superabound, be in excess, to be abundant, to exceed, to remain over and above." This is more than "just" suffering. This is suffering to some kind of extreme.
The initial thought of having sufferings is something from which we, with reason, want to avoid at all costs. Suffering hurts, whether physical or emotional, and no one in their right mind wants to suffer.
Or so we have been taught to believe.
But there is a higher purpose in our suffering, a purpose which might change our minds about what we are going through. Andrew Murray writes:
"Abide in Christ! This is indeed the Father’s object in sending the trial. In the storm the tree strikes deeper roots in the soil; in the hurricane the inhabitants of the house abide within, and rejoice in its shelter. So by suffering the Father would lead us to enter more deeply into the love of Christ. Our hearts are continually prone to wander from Him; prosperity and enjoyment all too easily satisfy us, dull our spiritual perception, and unfit us for full communion with Himself.
"It is an unspeakable mercy that the Father comes with His chastisement, makes the world round us all dark and unattractive, leads us to feel more deeply our sinfulness, and for a time lose our joy in what was becoming so dangerous. He does it in the hope that, when we have found our rest in Christ in time of trouble, we shall learn to choose abiding in Him as our only portion; and when the affliction is removed, have so grown more firmly into Him, that in prosperity He still shall be our only joy. So much has He set His heart on this, that though He has indeed no pleasure in afflicting us, He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home and abide in the beloved Son. Christian! pray for grace to see in every trouble, small or great, the Father’s finger pointing to Jesus, and saying, Abide in Him." (Heritage of great evangelical teaching : Featuring the best of Martin Luther, John Wesley, Dwight L. Moody, C.H. Spurgeon and others. 1997, c1996. Thomas Nelson: Nashville).
I think that we often spend great amounts of time pleading with God to remove the suffering, when, if we understood its purpose, we might instead embrace it with open arms. Who doesn’t want to be closer to Christ? Who doesn’t want to feel His communion with us even stronger? Who doesn’t want to be refined for the purposes of the Kingdom? And yet when we continue to beg for the suffering to be removed, we are turning our backs on the fact that there are usually clouds before rain, hard work before strength, darkness before light. Murray wrote: "He does it in the hope that, when we have found our rest in Christ in time of trouble, we shall learn to choose abiding in Him as our only portion" (emphasis mine). Life in America is infused, even bombarded, with things that please our flesh: food that is tasty, entertainment to distract us from the mundaneness of life, soft beds, comfy clothes, flattering talk. We are lulled by, even drawn to, those things which feel good and which satisfy our emotions. And yet, that is not the better thing! We are being deluded by the Enemy to settle for that which is temporary when our Heavenly Father so longs to give us that which is eternal. And the eternal only comes through the door of embracing the sufferings of Christ. We follow Him by picking up our cross just as He did. We cling to Him by taking up His yoke. We become like Him by understanding the purpose of sacrificial living and embracing it as fully as the human body can.
So, in a sense, perhaps it isn’t bad news that we will have tribulation. Perhaps Paul understood because of his own life experience that it is good news that we will have tribulation and even better news that through tribulation God will provide comforts beyond our wildest imagination. Perhaps what we are searching for, a cessation of the tribulation, is the wrong thing. Perhaps in embracing the tribulation we are facing only then will we receive the full comfort from the Father of all comforts. Perhaps what we need to do is instead of praying that our tribulation goes away, press in and push forward with open arms so that we can fully become that which the Father has longed for us to become.
Perhaps tribulation is really actually good news . . .
© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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