Overcoming Suffering

We all suffer. Every day we might suffer a bit of pain, conflict or anguish. Some days we might suffer a tremendous amount—grief, depression, or horror. And some of us suffer chronically—homelessness, disease or constant persecution. We can all tell ourselves, "suffering is a part of life", but we will still do all we can to avoid suffering. We want to not have anything to do with suffering. And if we can’t do away with it, then at least we attempt to reduce it. This is because, really, truly, we don’t believe that we should have any suffering in our lives. And so we try to eliminate it, as much as possible.
What Causes Suffering?
When we suffer, we immediately determine a cause of suffering, in the hopes of eliminating it. Usually, we come up with an instant diagnosis of our suffering, and we determine the cause. It could be that we have enemies that hate us and want to cause us suffering. It could be someone else who just doesn’t care for us as they should. Maybe it is Satan, that wants to make us miserable. Maybe it is just circumstances beyond our control. But we come up with an almost instant diagnosis, and then as quickly a solution. And almost always, we are wrong.
We are wrong about what causes suffering because most of the time we neglect many of the elements of our suffering. Even if we can say that a conflict is causing us suffering, we neglect to note that the cause of the conflict comes from four sources: the circumstances, the means of communication, the person we are in conflict with and ourselves. All of our suffering is complex like this, and usually not to be found with an instant diagnosis. And we almost always take ourselves out of the equation of causing the suffering. We look all around us, pointing fingers all around, but we neglect to acknowledge at least a minor factor in our suffering—our reactions, our weaknesses, our selfishness. We all struggle with many things—guilt, loneliness, anxiety, depression, anger, hatred, boredom—and we cannot really pin the blame for these feelings on anyone. They exist in us, they are a part of who we are. This is part of the difficulty of suffering—our suffering is completely self-contained. If we lived in a paradise, we would still be completely self sufficient in creating our own suffering.
There is one other thing we do that keeps us suffering—and that is our attempts to avoid suffering. Frequently, we choose releases from suffering that may give us a certain amount of relief, but in the end they cause more suffering in our lives. For a while, alcohol, sex, drugs, medicine, artificial beauty, politics, love, war, friendships, religion, good food, shopping, television, video games, and many other things seem like they really help us. But in the end, when we see how empty our lives are with them, we realize that we haven’t avoided suffering at all, and all we have left is guilt, depression and boredom.
Tools To Reduce Suffering
God doesn’t want us to suffer. In fact, he has made it one of his goals to assist us in our quest to stop suffering. He has given us assistance and opportunities to reduce our suffering. He has offered us a whole array of tools to help us suffering:
Repentance—A way to really get rid of guilt
Prayer—An opportunity to request the King of the Universe to help avoid suffering
Love—Relieving others’ suffering, creating a context without suffering
Fasting—A basic tool for self-control
Obedience—Following the instruction manual for humanity
Knowledge of truth—Understanding what is significant that will help us avoid suffering
Healings, exorcisms—Being released from diseases and spirits that force us to suffer
Ecstatic experiences—Receiving spiritual enjoyment that makes no sense without God
Self-control—The ability to choose not to do what causes us to suffer
God’s people—A social group that actually cares about us
Spiritual gifts—Spiritual abilities to support others
Martyrdom—A political move to replace the world’s rulers with God’s
Future Kingdom—A social revolution, ceasing suffering for all who are ready for it
These tools aren’t just a grab-bag of possibilities, but the basic means God created us with to reduce our suffering. They do not completely eliminate suffering, but they reduce the everyday suffering in our lives so we can endure living, and enjoy living.
However, you might note that almost every item listed above has two things in common—first of all, they all make us face suffering in order to reduce suffering. If we repent, we have to suffer humiliation and get rid of something important in our lives. If we love, we take the risk of being hurt by others—again and again. If we fast—well, frankly, we get hungry! If we obey, we don’t get to do what we sometimes want to. Why would God give us a list of tools that cause as much suffering as it reduces? Because God knows the secret we have a hard time accepting—to reduce suffering, we must first embrace suffering.
This doesn’t mean that suffering is something we just accept in any and every form. Obviously, not all suffering is good for us. Many people have made the mistake of thinking that if they suffer, God will bless them for it, no matter what kind of suffering it is. That simply isn’t true. God won’t bless a person sitting on a pole for months any more than a person who is struck with cancer. For suffering to be redemptive—for it to do any good in reducing our suffering—it must have two elements to it: we must be loving God in it, and we must be doing good to others in it. If they don’t have these two elements, then our suffering is not acceptable to God.
This means that for God, if a tool is to be used, it is not enough that it reduce our suffering. We cannot use these tools selfishly, just so that we can feel good. Rather, we need to use the tools in a way that God gains a benefit out of it, as well as other people. We need to be honoring God in all we do to reduce our suffering and we need to be supporting others.
The Key To the Toolbox
There is one other common element to every one of God’s tools to reduce suffering. They all depend on God’s power, God’s strength in our lives. Not one of the tools mentioned is possible on our own. We just don’t have the stamina to endure in them. Sure, many people can fast, and others can love people for a while. We can all apologize for something we’ve done wrong. But to do these things in the right way, consistently enough so that our suffering—and other’s suffering—is reduced. That’s very difficult for us to do as human beings. We need a touch of the divine to accomplish that.
At this point, it might seem that we want to throw up our hands and say, "Forget it! I am not God, and I don’t know how to depend on God in that way. I guess I’ll just find my own way to avoid suffering." Just hold on there. Remember—God is right there. And he wants you to get rid of suffering out of your life. He really does. So he has given us a way to depend on Him for suffering.
First, God gave us Jesus. Jesus is the one who showed the way of reducing suffering through embracing suffering. And he suffered so that we might live in peace. God sent Jesus so that we can have these tools available to us. Jesus opened up the way to God so that we have the possibility of depending on Him. Jesus is the key to the toolbox. He provides the way to escape suffering.
Secondly, God sent us the Holy Spirit. If Jesus is the key to the toolbox, the Holy Spirit is the power cord. For all of these tools are power tools—they don’t work unless you empower them. The Holy Spirit is God in us that gives us the ability to use these tools rightly. Through the Holy Spirit we can use these tools. Through the Holy Spirit we can use these tools in a way that supports others. Through the Holy Spirit we can use these tools in a way that honors God.
So the first step in reducing suffering is committing ourselves to have Jesus as our Lord and King. The second step is asking God to send us the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Once these two steps are done, we are ready to depend on God to reduce our suffering.