A Lesson in Suffering

Boy is it hot here in Korea! 

I am writing this blog a couple days after parting ways with my fiancee in Daegu, South Korea. During the 5 days I was there, we had a blessed time together with our families.

Unfortunately, 2 of those 5 days for me was spent in bed... 

The mixture of different foods, stress on my body from constant travel, as well as the different climate caused me to become quite sick. I was throwing up everything I ate, and had a hard time even falling to sleep from all the pain.

Here is an important lesson I learnt in the midst of my pain.

Suffering isn't about me.

Late one night, I was struck that I was reassuring myself in this midst of my pain by looking to the hardship of others and saying, “Lord, thank you that I am at least not in that kind of situation!” 

On the surface, such an attitude might appear godly, but I knew in that moment that what I had done was take the very real and ongoing suffering of millions of people worldwide and reduce it to something that terminates on me.

There is a gross inclination in our hearts to turn the suffering of others into something that is about us.

Instead of praying for, and mourning with those who are suffering, we like to make it about us by thanking God for our relative comfort and safety. To be sure, we must be thankful for the grace that God has lavished upon us but that does not mean that we can ignore the very real pain of others by turning it into something that merely terminates with me, myself, and I.

Rather, when we suffer, let us take our pain captive to the obedience of Christ by directing the alertness and spiritual fervency pain produces towards the needs of others by praying also their relief and peace (and not just our own).

"If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer." (2 Cor. 1:6)