Life is a Gift

"We can never repay
our parents for the gift of life."

Fr. Brian Mullady

Suffering Isn't a Way of Life

Counting our living "joy"

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

James 1:2-4

With brothers and sisters coming to Jesus in greater and greater numbers in wake of conflicts in the Middle East, there is so much zeal of faith in Christ, so much new life in Jesus, so much joy over forming new churches and having baptisms and just overall good harvests, in certain countries of refuge. [This was written so long ago. It's a shame the same can't be said in 2024.]

But with that zeal, there also seems to be at least a little of the old Muslim way of feeling about some things. The Holy Spirit is leading; but the old heart also is speaking.

So there are Christian testimonies, sometimes, that are a little outside the lines of how the Holy Spirit leads us: like when a new minister (who has done so much: who has done the faithful work of praying his family not only to safety but to work fruitfully for Christ) says there's a price to pay for following Jesus.

I think he hasn't gotten the good news deep in heart yet, that Jesus "paid it all," and that we've been called to a certain freedom.

Too often, newness in Christ seems to be compromised by the old feeling that faithfulness means suffering and suffering. And maybe that's why some of our understanding of the New Testament has begun to lean a little more toward suffering than the Holy Spirit intends for us.

When the Apostle James says to count it joy when we're going through trials of life, he's not saying to look for trials to get into, to look for temptations, to look for opportunities to suffer, nor to want anyone else to suffer. But the Holy Spirit is saying, through James, that when there are trials or tests of faith (even though, like Jesus, we despise the shame), we have to keep focused on the promise of deliverance and the prize of Heaven, which is "joy."

Throughout trials of the New Testament, we learn to focus on what's ahead in Christ, to endure through ignoring the suffering and focusing only on the "expected end," which is never the Christian's destruction.

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord.

"They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

Jeremiah 29:11, New Living Translation

But what about long-suffering? The New Testament teaches that long-suffering may be an outcome of being a devoted in faith. Isn't that an argument for suffering?

... You know, God lets us know, through His word, that we're always supposed to be ready with an answer for the hope that we have because of our faith in Jesus. And the Bible says we're able to even shut mouths, to end arguments, through Him.

So it's with conviction in the Spirit that we know, and are blessed to say, how long-suffering is only seasonal — or for a season — in our lives.

Yes, slavery in the United States was a time of long-suffering, and that time wasn't for what anyone would call a short season. But, in that time, God was working, bringing many slaves to life in Him.

And that time of true long-suffering did have an end, a season of deliverance, of harvest. And the end was joy — a joy the Holy Spirit had led many a faithful slave to keep faith for.

That was during the time of the birth of a nation.

Slavery was among our birth pangs, as Jesus might say. And even Israel, the mother place of our faith, has well known those pangs.

But those pangs, ultimately, were only for a season, not as a way of life for generations; and suffering isn't what the Christian is to look forward to — but joy in the end.

To review:

In Jesus, suffering is only momentary, not a way of life. 

The reason we count it joy when there's sometimes suffering in Him, is we know suffering is only for a short while, that our day of deliverance is promised, that we can endure — thinking only of the prize of deliverance for many people.

 

During difficult times in the life of nations, during the birth pangs Jesus foretold, there's always the promise of joy.

And maybe, today, long-suffering, for us as Christians, means growing patient (for a short while) with the broken, fallen nature of this world.

But personal suffering — as individuals and as families — isn't supposed to be a way of life.