Purpose in Suffering

This Sunday in 1 Peter, we will be introduced specifically to the theme of suffering.  In preparation for Sunday I want to encourage you to reflect on the nature and purpose of suffering.  In his book, Knowing God (p 97-98) (also available in the church library) J. I. Packer writes about suffering.  He is reflecting on the suffering of so many of God’s children in the Old Testament and reminds us that these things happen “for our learning” (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:11).  We should not then be surprised when the trials come (cf. 1 Peter  4:12).  Packer asks, “How do we interpret the ‘unexpected and upsetting and discouraging things’ that happen to us.  “What do they mean?’” He answers, “Simply that God in his wisdom means to make something of us which we have not attained yet, and he is dealing with us accordingly.” He then explores the possible purposes God has for us in the midst of unexpected and discouraging things: (emphasis mine) Perhaps he means to strengthen us in patience, good humor, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice in exercising these graces under especially difficult conditions.  Perhaps he has new lessons in self-denial and self-distrust to teach us.  Perhaps he wishes to break us of complacency, or unreality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit.  Perhaps his purpose is simply to draw us closer to himself in conscious communion with him; for it is often the case, as all the saints know, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest. . . .Or perhaps God is preparing us for forms of service of which at present we have no inkling. Paul saw part of the reason for his own affliction in the fact that God “comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Cor. 1:4).  Even the Lord Jesus “learned …obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Then he makes a key point: ‘He knows the way he taketh’, even if for the moment we do not. We may be frankly bewildered at things that happen to us, but God knows exactly what he is doing, and what he is after, in his handling of our affairs.  Always, and in everything, he is wise: we shall see that hereafter, even where we never saw it here (Job in heaven knows the full reason why he was afflicted, though he never knew it in this life).  Meanwhile, we ought not to hesitate to trust his wisdom, even when he leaves us in the dark. But how should we respond to baffling and trying situations when cannot now see God’s purpose in them?  First, by taking them as from God, and asking ourselves what reactions to them, and in them, the gospel of God requires of us;  second, by seeking God’s face specifically about them. “If we do these two things,” Packer writes, “we shall never find ourselves wholly in the dark as to God’s purpose in our troubles.  We shall always be able to see at least as much purpose in them as Paul was enabled to see in his thorn in the flesh… ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’….once Paul saw that his trouble was sent to enable him to glorify Christ, he accepted it as wisely appointed and even rejoiced in it.  God give us grace, in all our own troubles, to go and do likewise” -Pastor Steve