The Marketplace: Suffering & Sovereignty

"I will no more suffer,

I will not beg for bread.

You're the miracle,

You have the superpower."

- Ugandan Worship Song

Suffering.
To endure pain or hardship; to sustain loss or damage. 
It's circumstances that overwhelm, attempts to drag you down and leave you helpless in a deep pit. I could go on.... 

To suffer. It's a word that is all too common on this side of the world. After seemingly endless years of war, poverty and devastation... the people of Uganda have suffered, just as the rest of us have in one way or another. It's not something we enjoy. It's not something we like to endure or walk patiently through. 

And it's definitely not something we typically welcome into our lives with open arms. 

In our marketplace discipleship, we have been working through the book of Job through a study called Suffering & Sovereignty. We've been wrestling with this question, "if we know we will suffer, then how do we learn to suffer well?"

This week we are focusing on chapters 26-30. Through Job's suffering so far we've seen a lot of partial "wisdom" and false theology provided by Job's friends. We also seen a whole lot of complaining and arguing in attempts to discover the reason as to why Job is suffering. In our study, we've been challenged to change our perspective from "woe is me" to "God is with me".  To know without a doubt, that God is sovereign and God is good. And in our suffering we have the choice to either pull away from God or push into God. 

 "From the Book of Job readers can learn how to challenge the false concepts related to suffering and how to maintain a loving and meaningful relationship, in the midst of suffering, with the sovereign God." - Larry J. Waters

I am no expert in suffering, but through our study we've come up with a few things to help us as we learn to suffer well. 

1. Acknowledge you are suffering
2. Acknowledge your feelings & surrender your them to God
3. Allow God & others to speak into your life
4. Trust in the sovereignty of God & know HE IS GOOD all the time

I can't imagine ever wanting to suffer, yet James 1:2-5 makes it very clear that we should learn to suffer well by considering our trials as pure joy.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Pure joy? Really? 

Wow. That's definitely not the thought I typically have when trials appear as towering mountains. We can get caught in the thought that if we serve and live a life pleasing to Christ, we will only receive his blessings. While he does bless us in more ways than we often recognize, in reality suffering just part of life. We suffer because of our own sin, struggle and because we have simply chosen to follow the Lord. And yet, the response we should aim for when deep in the pit of suffering, is joy. Pure joy. But how do we get there? 

It's a process. Challenging ourselves to a new way of thinking about suffering is hard. It's a cultivating of faith and trust in the One who sees all, knows all and walks with you through it all. Lean hard into God. His arms are open, waiting and ready for you. 

"He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me.
The more intense the pain, the close His embrace."
- Joni Eareckson Tada

__________________

Larry J. Water, Reflections on Suffering From the Book of Job

Joni Eareckson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain,  

and God's Sovereignty