Choosing to Suffer

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake. (Philippians 1:29)

I came across the following quote by holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Victor Frankl, “But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.” The quote is from Frankl’s transformative work, Man’s Search for Meaning. Rather than delve into Frankl’s meaning, I would like to take a moment and riff on the quotes meaning for our spiritual lives.

At first glance, the quote may appear false. The courage to suffer implies we decide to suffer. I do not know anyone who chooses cancer just so the person can suffer, for example. Yet, I have witnessed many people who choose to suffer courageously when they may have chosen to suffer without courage. Instead, I would like to talk about the suffering you decide to participate in experiencing. Anyone who has ever been in an authentic relationship chooses to suffer! You suffer with friends when you could just walk away. Parenting is perhaps the most apt example.

Don’t believe me? Be a parent; your suffering and worry continue for the rest of your life. Every day you suffer in great and small ways. When Hannah was little, we would suffer as she learned to walk and kept falling headfirst. We suffered on her first Christmas when she was covered in chickenpox. We still suffer with Hannah as she and her husband raise their children. Yet, it is a suffering we choose to participate in every day because the alternative is to not care.

The Deists believe God created the world and left us to run it. I disagree! We learn through Jesus that God wants to suffer with us because we are God’s children. Hannah and Justin are better than my wife and I were about suffering. If little Gordie or Brooks are doing something dumb and may get mildly hurt, they say, “Let him do it. That’s how he learns.” Then you suffer as they cry and help them learn why they hurt themselves. God often does the same to us. We are just as slow in learning as my two- and four-year-old grandsons because, like parents, God aches again the next day when we make the same mistake until we finally realize that gravity works. Be Christ-like and embrace suffering love. You will hurt, but you will never regret it.