Whitten Q & A - Ep. 9 - What is God's purpose in Our Suffering?

Hi! Welcome to Saturday's Q &A. I'm Keri Stanley. This is

Char, self. And I guess tonight's question is, what is

God's purpose in our sufferings? So, we'll get started. And I think in some of the research that I was doing for this, when

I was looking up, I think for a lot of us, when we think of the word suffering, we try to figure out why there is suffering.

I think for a lot of us, we try to figure out why there's suffering in the world. You know, why does he not stop the suffering?

And the bottom line, I think, is the effects of a fallen world.

And I think we all know and we all understand that we've all suffered and had sufferings in our life and things that have been painful for us to get through and deal with.

And I would even say, some of that suffering in our lives isn't always because of things that we've done, but sometimes we suffer at the expense of decisions and things that other people have done, and that also leads us to have suffering.

Consequences? Definitely. We all understand that there's consequences for sin, and anytime where sin exists, then automatically suffering will always follow that.

I think the first point that I kind of, when I was doing this and researching some of this,

I kind of came across, for me, there were like three really important points,

I think, when describing what His purpose is in those sufferings. And my first one was,

God wants us to become more like Christ, and He uses that suffering to draw us closer to Christ and to understand what

He actually, the suffering that He endured on the cross.

A funny thing that I think about sometimes when I think about becoming more like Christ is, and I don't know if y 'all saw it years ago, those skit guys.

They did a skit where a gentleman was, it was showing

God chiseling away to make Him more like Christ, and those things that God's chiseling to make us more like Christ, He's actually chiseling away like our pride and our, you know, different parts of our sin life, and we don't always want to let those go because we have control and things like that, but the whole purpose is to ultimately become more

Christ -like, and that only comes through, at times, suffering and that submission and stuff.

Yeah, and really it's conforming to His image, really. I know

Paul writes, he wrote to the church in Rome. I know you had some scripture, and I had some scripture as well from Romans regarding this.

We can look up whichever one you want to go with first.

We can do 5 first, and then we'll go to 8. That way we're in order. But Romans 5, starting in verse 3, it says,

And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces proven character, and I used to think,

I used to struggle with the word hope, right? I used to be like, oh, man. To me, hope was more like a wish.

Well, I hope I get to do this, and I hope it's, you know, sunny today. I hope we get a vacation, whatever.

And it wasn't until I understood that hope was actually an assurance of a promise from God that will be fulfilled.

It's not a wishful thinking. It's an actual thing that God is going to do this, and you can have that, and trust in that hope.

It's an assurance. And so, even though we're going to struggle, and we're going to have those things, it doesn't matter, because that's going to produce endurance, and that endurance is going to help us finish the race, and we're going to know that at the end of that, that hope is secure in Christ, and that we will eventually be with Him in the end.

And so, it comforts in that moment. For me, the scripture that I came across was

Romans 8, 28 through 29. Let's flip over to that.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose.

And for those He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those He predestined, He also called, and those He called, He also justified, and those

He justified, He also glorified. I think, for me, when we read that, the thing that stands out the most for me is the good that God is working, and working all things together.

He's conforming you and me to the image of His Son. And He doesn't,

He wants us, I don't think He rejoices in our, He doesn't like to see us have to suffer, but He also wants us to,

He doesn't merely want to remove the suffering right away. He doesn't want to transform us.

He wants to transform us in the middle of it. He wants to change us through the sufferings. His infinite wisdom works all things that are painful, difficult, heart -breaking things, terminal things, and excruciating things.

He works those together for the good, so that we may become more like Him. And I think that's,

I think that's really important for people to understand that He's not just doing it.

And laughing. Right, or just not doing it because He wants to. He brings the purpose and joy in our suffering.

And I think it's important to understand that just because we're in that suffering, like you said, isn't an immediate, it's not an immediate release from that or whatever, you know, sometimes that suffering can last.

We often get in that spot where we're like, oh my gosh, can you just take this away now? But it's not, it's not our timing with things, you know, we struggle with that sometimes.

Yeah, he, I think he doesn't want to see an immediate relief from comfort.

His goal is in our sufferings is not our immediate relief and comfort because then we wouldn't learn anything from it.

We wouldn't be refined in any sort of way from it. And we learn to rely on Him more when we're going through that rather than,

I mean, if I were to come to you and you could fix everything that I was suffering with or the things that I was struggling with, then I wouldn't have to need

God. And so He wants me to cry out to Him. He wants me to need Him in that so that He can do that work and He can do that healing in His time, you know.

And it's definitely for more, it's to allow us to become more holy as well.

Right. Because in turn, that brings, that refines us, it makes us more holy. I mean, he's not concerned, he's more concerned with our holiness than our happiness.

Yes. He knows that our happiness needs to be once we are glorified in our bodies.

It doesn't need to be here on earth. It needs to be, this is where we learn the sufferings for Him so that He's glorified and that once our bodies are glorified, that is where our true happiness should lie.

I guess that brings us to the next point, which is kind of funny, our reliance on Him. Like you were saying, you know, He wants us to fully rely on Him.

And I think we both had some scripture from Corinthians. Yeah, we're both in chapter 1 also.

I have verses 4 and 5 of, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians chapter 1. He comforts us in all of our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction through the comfort that we ourselves receive from God.

For as the sufferings of Christ, this is 5, overflow to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows.

When we go through things and we are relying on God and He comforts us, that's the same comfort that we can then extend to someone else.

It's not a, hey, I can fix your problems, but I can show you somebody who can help you and who can get you through those same things.

And I think when we learn to do that more and we let go of that control that we often try to have with things, we find a little bit more peace in that.

Because I think control is very, it's a false sense of security.

I think for anybody who feels like they have to control the situation or, it's not a reality because ultimately

God is in control of everything. Right. And so, good point. I think the scripture that I came across that was important for me

I think was 2 Corinthians 1 and it was 8 through 9. For we don't want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in Asia.

We were completely overwhelmed beyond our strength so that we even despaired of life.

Indeed, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.

And that's what stuck out for me was that it's not putting our trust in ourselves and our abilities, it's putting our trust in God's abilities.

I think when things are good for us, when we are happy, when we're prospering, when we have money or things in our life are happy and we don't have any sufferings at all, it's easy for us to forget to rely on God for those things.

I remember a time when I was praying for one of my kids and they were struggling with some stuff which again by default caused me to have suffering, right?

And I actually later repented because of this but when I saw that God had stepped in and done the work that I had prayed so long for, immediately

I gave thanks for that. But then soon after, when I noticed this was an actual consistent behavior that one of my children had learned and they were walking way better, not 100 % where they need to be but they were doing not the things they had been,

I honestly, I don't want to say I forgot but I think I just got so comfortable with, okay, they're not hurting anymore and they're not suffering in that sense.

I'm not suffering in that sense and I almost would say, like I said, I hate to say I forgot but stopped praying, right?

I stopped seeking that even though I knew in my mind and in my heart, okay, they're not where they need to be.

I was so excited over what had transpired and I had gotten so comfortable in what had transpired that I stopped coming back over here to that because it gave me that, what we said, a false sense of security and when

I realized that, right, and when I realized that that's where I was, it immediately drew me to repentance because I was like, oh my gosh, what am

I doing? And so, yeah, we definitely need to be mindful of that.

I think that's why he allows, that's another reason for sure why he allows the suffering is because he wants us to realize that we have a great need for him.

And even though it's really easy when we're healthy and prospering that it's really easy to forget that we need him so much, we kind of just go, well, everything's great in my life so we just kind of block out, you know, well, everything's going great so I don't really have to reach out to him.

So when these moments happen where, like Paul said, where he calls it a sentence of death, that is when we have a great need to reach out for God.

And prosperity, suffering shows us we have a great need for God that prosperity never will.

And I think that was really something that stood out for me when I was researching that. And what comfort and security to know that in those moments of sufferings is when we want, what we want the most in our darkest, deepest, darkest places is we want to rely on him the most.

Here's what's funny, as I said, it drew me to a state of repentance. Yeah. And then your next point that you were like, hey,

God wants us to repent. Absolutely. He does.

That for me was a really, I mean, that should be a really important one for, especially for the believer.

You know, the scripture I pulled from that was Luke 13, 4 -3 -5.

At that time, some people came and reported to him about the Galileans whose blood

Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And he responded to them, do you think that these

Galileans were more sinful than all Galileans because they suffered these things? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish as well.

Or those 18 that the tower in Siloam fell on and killed, do you think that they were more sinful than all the people who live in Jerusalem?

No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish as well. I think it's really important for us to remember that he permits suffering too to draw us to repent.

And it's a warning of impending judgment. He uses suffering to call people to repentance.

He's lost and saved. It does not matter. He's drawing all of us. We are even, we can be a believer and still be drawn into sin.

And in those moments where we're drawn into sin is when he is, he will make us suffer so that we will ultimately draw, he will use that to draw us to repentance.

Right. So, I think this was one of my favorite things. I know a lot of people like C .S.

Lewis and one of his books. I love this. It's called The Problem of Pain.

This was something that I just really loved out of that book.

It says, we can ignore even pleasure, but pain insists upon being intended to.

God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.

It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. God uses, I think,

God uses a megaphone. Suffering is God's megaphone to get this world to wake up, listen, and repent.

I think bottom line. Right. Definitely. I think the next point for me was probably, wasn't my favorite point necessarily, but it was one that I think definitely people don't understand when they're trying to come to understand why he, not that he causes suffering, but that he allows it.

And he wants us to see his glory displayed. And I was sharing that exact point last week with someone and I said, if I had gone through everything that I had gone through and there had not been a purpose, then you're just like, okay, so we just, well, that, right.

What was that for? But if I understand that in my suffering, it's so that God can be glorified, then it changes my perspective as well on my sufferings and the things that I'm going through.

But I can take it and I can say some of the things that I've experienced, the way that God is glorified in that is by my openness and that testimony of, hey, this is what's happened, but this is what happened through that.

And then someone else can come to me, right. And then someone else can come to me and say, okay, how did you deal with this?

When I know you, you know, you went through that. How did you deal with this? And then God is glorified because now I'm able to share with someone else, you know, a brother or sister, right.

What he's done in my life and how I overcame and what, you know, what that process looked like even at times.

And not that my process is going to be the same as yours, but that again, we go back and we know that that endurance produces that character and that character, you know, that hope.

And, and so it goes all the way back to that. I had someone ask me a couple months ago, Char, how have you done it?

And I'm like, done what? And, and she said, you've experienced so much loss and you're fine.

Like, I just lost someone and I'm like, not okay. And I explained to her,

I don't grieve like I'm lost. I grieve with a hope. And so it opened up a whole door to be able to have a conversation.

And I know that even through those losses and as tragic as some of those were and as heart wrenching as some of those were, that door opened.

And, and those, those things that maybe I hadn't thought of in the past of being able to, to help someone else, those sufferings that I went through in that moment, all these years later, someone says, but how?

And I'm like, okay, but God in this, but God did this. And, and so I think for most of us who understand their testimony, your testimony literally is for,

I mean, for all of us, our testimonies are a glorification of God, right?

We are examples of his glory just through our testimonies themselves.

And none of us are free from, from sufferings. We all have them. It's understanding and why he allows them and what the purpose is behind that.

So our testimony is the purpose for our suffering so that there is that testimony so that we have a story to tell for what he's done for us.

Right. Period. Right. It's like irrefutable information. Like I'm telling you, this is what happened. You can't really argue with me about what happened.

We lived through this. You can too. And this is how we got through it. Right. So I know the scripture that I found for this was

John 9, 1 -3 -3. And this was kind of some of the things that, that I really, that are to me glorify

God and are points that he uses as, for his glorification.

It says, as he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth.

His disciples questioned him, Rabbi, who sent this man or his parents that he was born blind?

So they were actually questioning other people for why he was blind. And it was just out of, it was literally just out of ignorance and not understanding.

Neither this man nor his parents sinned, Jesus answered. This came about so that God's work might be displayed in him.

So it was literally, this man was going to be used by God. Right. And Jesus knew that.

But just for clarification, where Jesus says, neither this man sinned nor his parents. I think we need to be clear. Sin was there.

It was, the sin was not the cause of the blindness. Right. But, yeah.

And, of course, there's lots of places, you know, in the Bible that talk about, you know, where he's been glorified.

He uses people, and that's just a, that's a great example of how he uses somebody. There was also

John 11, 1 through 4, where we talk about Lazarus.

I'm sure everybody knows about Lazarus. It says, Now a man was sick,

Lazarus, from Bethany, the village of Mary, and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the

Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent a message to him,

Lord, the one you love is sick. When Jesus heard it, he said, This sickness will not end in death, but is for the glory of God, so that the

Son of God may be glorified through it. So, just like the blind man who he allowed, you know, he spit and made mud and spread them on his eyes and made him see, he also used

Lazarus as well by raising him from the dead. Right, and we know, like, Jesus even slowed down a little bit. He's like, isn't getting a big rush to run to Lazarus?

Like, he literally waits until he's been dead, and in the tomb for days, right? Like, there's no question on whether he's alive or dead.

Right, and so, again, when we go back and we talk about how, you know, sometimes it's not immediate.

You know, they're like, hurry, get to him, he's sick. And Jesus is like, eh, you know. I think it's easy to see also where we know people who are struggling with disease, with death, with, you know, those things.

He uses them by not necessarily healing them immediately. Right, right, right.

He wants us to see that suffering so that he can eventually use that person in that healing to glorify him.

Yep. So, and I think that's where some people get very angry. You know, well, why isn't he doing this? Why isn't he, why is he allowing the heartache?

It's just, I think, this proves in scripture, he uses it to glorify him.

Yep. Ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what it's for. So that he's magnified. You can learn some lessons through the suffering, but at the end of the day, it's to glorify

God, so. He will bring about a purpose always. There's always a purpose in our suffering. That's it.

That's it. That's all we got. Yep. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye.