Expect Suffering & Grow From It

Tom Shrader explores the biblical promise that all who desire to live godly lives will face persecution and suffering. Drawing from Romans 8:28 and other passages, he shows that God sovereignly uses suffering as a tool to produce endurance and spiritual growth. Rather than avoiding or eliminating suffering, believers should embrace it as part of God's plan, trusting that He causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him.

“God has organized and structured our lives to include problems and suffering. Your mission is not to stop the suffering, but to find Him through the hurt and the pain.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World (2001)

Recorded: March 29, 2001

Duration: 43 min

Themes: suffering, persecution, endurance, growth, trust, trials, faithfulness, steadfastness, facing persecution, experiencing trials, struggling believer, young adult, new believer, faithful christian, suffering saint, growing disciple

Scripture: Romans 8:28, 2 Timothy 3:12, James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 4:12, 2 Timothy 1:6-8, John 9

Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual growth, providence, sovereignty, biblical worldview, persecution theology, spiritual maturity, godliness

Full Transcript

Today, week 10 of this series "How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World" is the working title. So far, you have not come up with anything better, although I've been waiting for you to do that. The implication is this: the world is not just corrupt—we've got that figured out. Beyond that, it's lost its moral compass, I think. What we're talking about is how to stay on track in a world that's lost that compass.

Here's the illustration we've used: many of the things that were taboo ten years ago are edgy today and will be mainstream in ten years. We were watching the other night, or I was watching, little Andy Griffith, and it was Barney, and it was perfect. Sarah came in—she's my 21-year-old now—and she said, "You should have seen Lucy today at noon. It was really great." As we talked, it was very interesting, because most of what we watch is the really old stuff. Although there's the Seinfelds and the Frasiers, other than that, most of what we watch is the really old stuff.

When you look at that older stuff—the Lucy stuff or the Dick Van Dyke stuff—you see Rob and Laura in separate beds, Ricky and Lucy in separate beds, and you see just the evolution. That was the way it was in those days, and the change that's taken place. Well, in this transition of culture as thought process, philosophy, morals, and ethics change, how do we stay straight? How do we stay focused and stable in the midst of that?

The Foundation for Staying Straight

We said the first week, here's how we do it. The first thing we do is establish the Bible as the final authority in our life. From that, everything else flows. Now I have a place where I can go where I find absolute truth and answers. I find a word that doesn't change. You'll never buy a Bible that says "updated with new material." That's not going to happen to you. This is it. Nobody's adding anything to it. This is the final word.

So now I begin the process of learning this word, understanding this word. I begin to live life confidently because now I know that I have the truth. I live confidently because of who He is, not because of who I am. I begin now to take the invisible God and make Him visible, and I begin to share the truth boldly.

We've said before—we won't spend any time on it today other than to mention it—these things are inseparable. I have to put these things together and I have to keep these things together. Now I live life confidently. We've talked about all of these different kinds of things.

A Difficult Truth We Must Face

Today we talk about something that is almost foreign in our thinking. We're going to talk about something that if you know it's coming, your instinct is to turn and run. If you hear that it's on the horizon, the first thing you want to do is batten the hatches and think, "Oh my." But God says this is exactly what you have to have if you're going to grow.

Here's what we're going to talk about. It's number 10 in our series: Accept suffering and grow from it.

I remember my first—well, it wasn't my first trip, but the first trip that I remember—to a Christian bookstore. As I was checking out, there were these books, leather-bound gold-leaf books, and the title was "The Promises of God." I picked one of them up and I looked at it. I thought, "Man, that's a pretty good deal. This is a good deal for me. I'm glad. I'm happy about this."

The Promises They Don't Print in Gold

What I discovered over the years is that there are some promises in this book, the Bible, that did not make it to that leather-bound gold-leaf book. Let me read one of them to you from 2 Timothy 3, verse 12: "And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." That's a promise. If you desire to be godly, if you're a Christian, you will be persecuted.

As we look through the Scripture, we see that the promise for us is not just a life and a path strewn with roses. Most people that I know who become Christians say, "I don't expect my life to be smooth." But the minute there's a hardship, you know what I see in almost all of them? They begin to go, "Why me?"

We have on this intellectual basis, "Oh, I know this doesn't mean everything's going to be smooth." But the minute there's hardship, we start to say to ourselves, "Wait a minute, God, what are you thinking about here? I've done everything. I'm doing everything. I used to be an absolute derelict, and you didn't do anything then. Now I got all my act together, and here you are, and you bring all this stuff to me."

The Reality of Persecution Today

That's a promise. You've got all of the suffering of the human experience plus persecution. You will be persecuted. Now for us in this country for now, it's a very small persecution. There are, if I remember—and I'm quoting these off the top of the head, so there could be some error in the midst of this—there are about 200,000 Christians that are killed every year for their faith.

If you go back to the time that Nero was in power and they were killing Christians, during that time they killed about 25,000 Christians—so a tenth of the Christians that are dying today. There is extraordinary persecution among Christians in the world today. For us, it's pretty mild. You may get passed over for a raise, or you may, at the job site, experience some sort of slight discrimination—not enough for a lawsuit, though you'll try. You may have friends that put you down, but rarely do we experience very harsh persecution, though it's a promise.

What James Says About Trials

James talks about trials. When he talks about trials, here's what he says—and I think we're going to study the book of James next. I'm going to teach James in San Diego, junior high, high school camp this year, so I think I'll do James in here, and it will allow me double preparation. James said it this: "Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials."

Reckon it joy, be joyful when you encounter trials. He does not say if you encounter trials, because they're inevitable. When these trials come, you rejoice. Why? Verse 3: "You know that the testing of your faith produces endurance," and that's what we're looking for, is endurance. The testing of my faith produces endurance.

Here's what Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:12: "Beloved, do not be surprised by the fiery ordeals among you which come upon you for the testing of your faith." There is a constant theme as we look at Scripture that there will in our life be this idea of testing, that there will be difficult, and that it's important for us to approach them in a joyful way and in an aggressive way.

God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Timidity

2 Timothy chapter 1, beginning in verse 6. Paul's just talked to Timothy, and he's reminding Timothy that he knows him, and he knows about him, and he knows about his faith. He said this: "And for this reason you kindle afresh the gift of God that was given to you through the laying on of hands." There's nothing magical about the laying on of hands. It was at that moment that the church structure identified with Timothy, said, indeed you are a gifted man. He said, you take that gift and you kindle it afresh.

Verse 7: "For God has not given us..." Now there's a subtle shift there. He goes from the singular personal pronoun, you, to the plural personal pronoun, us. "God has not given us a spirit of timidity." The word could also be translated fear. It's fear that's caused by weakness or a selfish character. "God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and of love and of discipline."

The word power has to do with the tools that God's given you. The word love means a desire to please Him and to serve others. And the word discipline has with it exactly that idea, a life under control. So here's what Paul's saying to Timothy: Don't you be afraid. And that's what he's talking about. You know these tough times are going to come. You know these difficulties are going to come. You know there's going to be hardship.

In the midst of this, don't you be afraid of them. You approach them joyfully. You be prepared for them. You approach them with power. You approach them with love. You approach them with discipline. The opposite of confusion, discipline, self-control. He said, that's how I want you to live.

Join With Me in Suffering for the Gospel

Verse 8: "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God." Suffering, pain, hardship, all those things that you instinctively push away, God says embrace those babies. Because those are the things that produce endurance.

And if there's anything that we're looking for in our Christian life, it's endurance. It's a faith that's real. It's a faith that lasts until the end.

I was at Forrest's home this weekend. We had a great time. We took our band over and did a men's conference. It was a great time. And the guy that was hosting was 67 years old. Bob Craning. Some of you might know Bob because he teaches up at Scottsdale Bible periodically.

We were having breakfast the second day. And I said, "So what are you thinking about?" And he said, "I'm just thinking about making sure I go the distance. I want to go the distance. I want to finish strong." He said, "I know so many men who are my age who at the end either just kind of bag it and put it aside and say, 'Well, that was part of what I did, but I'm too old now.' Or they do something really stupid to disqualify themselves." He said, "I don't want to do that. I want to finish strong." That's exactly what Paul's talking about.

Understanding Hopelessness Before Hope

Martin Luther is the one who said, and I paraphrase: You can't begin to understand hope until you understand hopelessness. See, the same thing is true of your faith. Your faith will never become real. You'll never turn to Christ in repentance and faith until you understand your need.

Have you noticed at your church that as you're baptizing people who are adults, that they say, "I came to Christ when I was five"? I hear five a lot. "I came to Christ when I was five, or I came to Christ when I was seven, but then nothing really happened, and then probably I didn't really become a Christian until later." How come that takes place?

Can a little baby, can a young child become a Christian? Sure. But I don't think many of them do. I think you get a lot of them to pray a prayer, but if you can't get a five-year-old to pray a prayer, you're pretty weak. You better be able to program a computer, because you're not going to survive anywhere else. But how deep can a five-year-old understand the need of a Savior?

Now, don't come up and tell me about your kiddie or grandkid, because I'm sure they're the exception, and they got it and all that other stuff, and they're extraordinary, and they're gifted. But I'm saying generally, a real understanding of faith isn't going to happen until you understand need. That's why, I believe, if you take the real rich and the real successful, you don't see many Christians in there. And the reason is they've always been able to do it. She pulled herself up by her bootstraps. He was able to handle everything that came. See, until you understand hopelessness, you'll never understand hope.

God Majors in Suffering

R.C. Sproul writes this, talking about suffering: "To remove God from human suffering is to quit the pilgrimage of faith. God majors in suffering. He disciplines and displays Himself in holy involvement in all suffering. Rather than be removed from our circumstances, it's our suffering that allows us to see God at work." Suffering are those moments when we see God working. Those suffering moments become tools that God uses.

Talk about natural instinct. In our life, we look at something, and we say, "It's careening out of control. Things are out of control." What we really mean to say is that things are beyond our control, but they're not...

God's Absolute Control in a Chaotic World

Things in this world are beyond our control, but they're not out of God's control. That's the whole point that we want to make as we start to head into this and spend the last half hour or so. Things in this world are beyond our control, but they're not out of God's control.

One of my favorite football games every year is the Army-Navy game. It's not because you're going to see necessarily great football. It's just I love the Army-Navy game. Every year, wherever I am, I watch the Army-Navy game. About five or six years ago in the Army-Navy game, and it's a big game. If you're Army and you're 0-10, but you beat Navy, you had a good year. If you're Navy and you're 0-10 and you beat Army, you had a good year.

As you watch those clips from around the world, these guys at the Naval Academy and these guys at West Point take this game very seriously. I love this game. A few years ago, there was a kid. Navy has an 18-yard field goal, basically an extra point to win the game. And there's a few seconds left. This is definitely the last play of the game.

So the Navy kicker lines up and he's ready to go. Army takes timeout to ice him. All the Navy players go over and huddle. This kid stood. Remember this so clearly? He just stood and just looked. He looked at the goal post, looked at the ball, just looked. He was ready. And all I could think of was, man, you're thinking way too much. This is a chip shot. Just put your head down and kick it.

They come in, they snap the ball, kid from Navy, boom. It's right. It looked like a drive I would hit. It was right. It went further right. And it was dead right. And this kid just dropped. This is everything. This is the Army-Navy game. This is the whole year. This isn't missing a 50-yard field goal. This is an 18-yard field goal.

The Tragedy That Followed

I told this story yesterday in one of the studies, and the Army coach of that game was there, which was pretty cool. So he misses this field goal. On the way home, he has three of his friends who are driving back home. They stop. I don't remember the exact circumstance. They stop. A tree falls on the car and kills one of the guys.

The next year at the Army-Navy game, because the kid's the kicker again next year, they're doing this whole story on this kid. And this kid begins to talk about it, and he said, if I'd have made that field goal, we would have stayed there, we would have celebrated more, we would have been there longer, and he would have never been at that spot where that tree fell at that time. There's a sense in which it's my fault.

See, there's moments like that where we look at that. By the way, that's just self-pity, thinking we're more important than we really are. But really looking at this, what we really need to understand is this. That may look like a total freak accident. A weird way to die. And maybe one of those things where you say, "Gosh, David, things are just out of control." No.

God's Perfect Timing and Sovereignty

God either caused that or allowed that. God could have stopped that, couldn't He? Or He pushed that tree down at that moment that we'll never maybe know, but it's important for us to understand, especially in the midst of suffering and pain and difficulty, especially in the midst of hardship, to understand things are beyond your control, but they are not out of control. God's in absolute control.

When was Jesus born? At just the right time. When did Jesus die? At just the right time. God is a sovereign God who has absolute control over every molecule in the universe. Nothing happens outside His control. Everything, every event, every happening, there's no chance. God either allowed it or He caused it.

Romans 8:28 - A Foundation Verse

One of the truths. Here's where we're going to spend the rest of the day. And it's a verse that many of you are familiar with. Not all of you, I'm sure. Romans 8, verse 28. Let's do this. Since it's such a familiar verse, let's see if without our Bible we can piece together what this verse says. And those of you who have been through here before when we've done this, now's a good time to be quiet.

What's that verse say? Anybody? "God works all things, good, bad, and different, together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." Very close. That's exactly right.

Starting at the Right Place

Here's what typically happens. Or here's what I did for years. I would start that verse in the middle. Frequently, if I say Romans 8, verse 28, almost everyone will start with "all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose." The problem with that verse, if I start there, is that that verse is about me. All things work together for me.

When I start, as she appropriately did, at the beginning of the verse, and I say God causes... In fact, it actually starts this way: "And we know." In my Bible at home that I use for study, I have the word "fact" written there. "And we know." This isn't intuition. This isn't the power of positive thinking. This isn't "I hope, hope, hope." This isn't "statistically most of the time." This is, "And I know, God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." That's what that verse says.

What This Reveals About God

Now, if you have no other verse in the Bible, that's the only verse you have. That's all you know about God. What does that tell you about God, that verse? What does it tell you? He's sovereign, which is redundant in a sense because being God makes you sovereign, but He's sovereign. What else? He's in control. What does it tell you about God? He's loving. He's good. Oh, now we're getting close. He's got a plan.

Here's the deal. For all things to work together for good, what that means is God has to be all-knowing and He has to be all-powerful. There's absolutely no way that God can work all things together for good unless He possesses both omniscience and omnipotence.

things together for good if He's not all-knowing, and there's no way for God to work all things together for good if He's not all-powerful. Let me give you an example. He has to be both.

Let's say He's all-knowing, but He's not all-powerful. So He's got this plan for your life, and He's all-knowing, and He sees you going, and He says, "Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't go down there. I know what's going to happen if you go there, but there's nothing I can do because I'm impotent. I'm not powerful." And you go down there. Bam!

Or you flip it around, and there you go, and you're moving along. God's watching you up there in heaven. Here you are. You go, boom! Something happens to you. You go, "Man, if I'd have known that was going to happen..." He has to be all-knowing, and He has to be all-powerful in order for Him to be able to cause all things to work together for good.

If that statement's true, and we know it is because the Scripture does not lie. The Scripture has no error in it. Then we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. He has to be all-knowing. He has to be all-powerful for that to be a true statement. When we talk about this whole idea of knowing, we mean with absolute certainty.

Finding Stability in an Unstable World

Now, here's the point. Let me connect them together in application. In a world that's very unstable, in a world that's changing all the time, in a world where not just molecular structures are changing, but economic structures are changing, political structures are changing, leadership's changing, moral values are changing, in a world that's changing continually, we find stability in God, in His Word, in the truth.

I believe if you go to the bookstore—bookstores are a great place to hang out—and just look at the books. When you go into Borders, look at the books that are on the first couple of tables, and it gives you a sense of where the culture is. And what you'll see is there is, and it's been in place for quite a while now, this idea of simplifying our lives. We want to make everything simple.

People are moving. They're moving to Montana. Can you imagine this? People are saying, "I'm going to Bozeman." I don't know what these people are thinking about. There's a reason nobody's lived there for years. But see, if you're in California—I was just over there a week ago today—and you're driving, and you're moving around, and it's pretty congested, and it's pretty tough, and the smog was extraordinarily bad last weekend, and you're over there, and you're saying, "I've got to get out of here," and you go, "What's the furthest from Montana?"

We were just talking about it a little bit before the study. We always want the opposite. If you've got really curly hair, you want straight hair with a slight wave. If you have straight hair with a slight wave, you want really curly hair. It doesn't matter.

Well, in this world that says, "Everything's out of control, I'll go back, I'll go simple, I'll go to Montana. That's what I'll do." Here's what you need to know. What doesn't change in this world is God and His Word. And He is a sovereign, all-powerful, all-knowing God who says to you, "I can do all things."

The Danger of Wrong Theology About God's Power

There's a book. Some of you have read this book called "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?" It's a book that you've read. Many of you have drawn comfort from it, and that's a tragedy because the book is filled with heresy. If I remember, chapter 7 of that book is titled, "God Can't Do Everything But He Can Do Some Very Important Things."

That book flows from a well-intended rabbi who had a son who died, who was trying to make meaning of it all. And when you try to make meaning of all these things, you're almost inevitably going to screw up your theology because "I don't want to accept that God caused it" or "I don't want to accept that God allowed it." But He did.

As I mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago, I'm listening through the Old Testament right now. And I'll tell you what, God is whacking these people around pretty good. God is saying, "Who made you deaf? Who made you dumb? Who do you think killed these people? I did." And He doesn't apologize for it. He's a holy, righteous God.

"Well, that's the God of the Old Testament." Well, think of Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament. And you see that same wrath of God again in the midst of His love, to be sure.

Suffering as God's Tool

When God begins to work in our life, what happens is suffering becomes the tools He uses. I said what I'm going to do is take the last 15 minutes and go application, application, application.

I taught on this verse in Tucson years ago. And I had to get out of there because I had to get back up here to teach. So I kind of went down the hall and kind of the back way where I didn't think I'd have to stop and talk to anybody. I just figured I could get to the car and get out of there.

There's a lady at the end of this hallway and I have no way around her. There's nothing I can do to avoid her. As I get down there, what I realize as I get close is that with her is another lady who's in a wheelchair. And I begin to talk about how you're doing, what's going on. And they said, "Fine." And I said, "How come you're in a wheelchair?" And she said, "Well, I'm paralyzed from the neck on down."

I said, "Well, what did you think of the lesson?" Because I just talked on suffering and I'm thinking... She said, "Oh, it was very good." And the friend said, "Show him what you can do." And they had taken a stick, I would say maybe two feet long, and put a flat metal piece on the end of it with a hole in it. And if her friend took the stick and put it in her mouth, she could hold the stick like this and loop the hole over her joystick and move her wheelchair.

I said, "Man, listening to me talk about suffering for somebody like you, you've got to be going, 'You don't know much.'" And she said, "No, no, no, not at all." I said, "What's that like?" And her answer to me

was this: God has really taught me patience. See, here's what we do. We see somebody in a wheelchair and we want to run them down to Benny Hinn and get them healed. That's the first thing we've got to do. Let's get them out of that wheelchair. We'd better get them up and running.

If God wants them up and running, He'll get them up and running. And I'm not at all saying, boy, let's not do anything to help that person. You want to help that person, but sometimes we're so quick to try to eliminate the suffering that we miss the lesson that God's teaching in the midst of it.

I mentioned we were in California last weekend and we did a question and answer time. There was a guy and he raised his hand and he stood up to ask a question and he just stood like this. His head was tilted over to one side and he said, "I've got a question." And I said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you asked." This went on for two or three minutes. And I said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you said."

After I taught that session, I saw him coming up to me. And everything in me wanted to run. And that's pathetic, but at least I admit it. Because I didn't know what dialogue to have. And he said, "I'm sorry about that question, but my brain gets racing and my tongue can't keep up." I said, "Well, I've got a friend Jerry who's like that." And he laughed.

And I said, "What happened? What's the deal with your neck?" He said, "I was 16. I'm driving home and they hit my car and I went to the windshield of my head. I was in a coma for three and a half months." And then he started to explain the brain thing to me. He's 400 times smarter than I am because I didn't understand a thing he said. And he said, "I never lost my sense of humor. And I want to be an evangelist. God has changed my life. I have such joy."

Don't Try to Eliminate What God Uses

See, now here's what we want to do. We say, "What a tragedy." Now I've got to admit, I would not have selected that for myself or him or anybody. But God either caused that or allowed that. And I'm telling you, if you take the time to get to know this guy, he's a beacon of hope and joy and the power of a transforming God.

When you come along to your life, and this is what we're doing, when you try to sterilize all these things out of here, you try to get rid of all the pain, you try to get rid of all the suffering, and that's what the government's trying to do. The government looks around and says, "Oh, we see somebody hurting there, we've got to get them all equal playing field," meaning everything identical, no hurt, no pain, no suffering. Now make sure, I'm not saying let's go suffer needlessly, but I'm saying suffering is part of the human condition.

Here's a couple of sentences I wrote. I think they're right. God has organized and structured our lives to include problems and suffering. Your mission is not to stop the suffering, but to find Him through the hurt and the pain. Not to be absorbed in the pain, but to try to find a way out. In other words, not to look for seven steps for this, or twelve steps for this, or seven ways to that.

Do we want to help people who are suffering? Sure we do. I'm not saying that. But when somebody comes in, for example, to us, we see this a lot, and they've got financial problems. Always, always, always what they want is money. And most of the time we're there to help them. But almost always their problem is not lack of income, it's excess expense.

And the minute you come to these people and you say to them, "Okay, we'll help you, but here's what I want you to know. You're going to bring in a budget, you're going to meet with somebody every week, we're going to watch where this money goes, we're going to take a look at this thing," I mean these people raise up and righteous, "Who do you think you are? Give me the money and that'll get rid of the problem." No. You're the problem.

And almost always when you help them, they're gone as soon as the money's gone. Or they're right back in the same circumstance. And there's a thousand and one reasons, but it all comes down to this: they never learned it. If somebody's in the midst of hurt and pain, understand this, there's a lesson in there somewhere. There's a lesson for them, there's a lesson for you. Don't short-circuit God's process by saying I'm going to take this and I'm going to eliminate the suffering. Because oftentimes what that means is you're eliminating the lesson.

Why Do People Suffer?

Let me do two things. I've got like just seven, eight minutes. Let me answer two things. Why do people suffer? And what should you do in the midst of suffering? And the why do people suffer, I've got maybe five or six things and there's way more than this.

Number one, as we talked about earlier, to learn patience and demonstrate joy under the most difficult circumstances. I'm telling you, when I got done talking to that young man at Forrest's home, it was a gigantic high for me. God used that young man who's in the midst of extraordinary pain to teach me a very valuable lesson.

Here's the second reason people suffer: For their sin. Oh, wait a minute. Everybody's in a hard situation, it's a sin? No. Remember John 9? Jesus is coming into town with the disciples. There's a man who's blind. They said, "Wait a minute, who's sinned? This guy or his parents?" And Jesus said, "Neither, but that he might be a display case for the work of God" and then He heals them.

But we do know this: When you sin, there are consequences. When you sin, there are consequences to what happens. Don't you for a second think that you can go on sinning and you're going to get away with it. And sometimes the sin is so great that the consequences last for the rest of your life. You mean God doesn't forgive sin? Yes, He does forgive sin. But that does not mean that He eliminates the consequences to that sin. And sometimes you'll

have suffering and hardship because of it.

To Reveal Yourself to Yourself

Here's the third reason. To reveal yourself to yourself. Sometimes you think you're really a spiritual giant and you just got it in the wheelhouse and you just got it all figured out and you got this. You can slice it and dice it. You've been to a thousand classes. And man, you've been through this Bible 15 times.

And a little suffering comes along and all of a sudden, you fold like a cheap suit. And what happened is you've been through the Bible 15 times but it hasn't been through you once. It's never been incorporated into your life. It's never become real. It's all theory. It's all academic. It's all out there. And the minute hardship comes, you cave.

We've made this point to you before, but can't make it too much. You don't know if you have patience until you're in trying circumstances. You don't know. And for a lot of you who are spiritual giants and you've got it memorized, it doesn't take much to set you off like a rocket.

I get to the airport. I fly America West almost exclusively and unlike apparently everyone else on the planet, I never have a problem. I got to the airport the other day and what had happened is because of weather, one of the other flights that came in, the crew that's turning around, they were late coming in. So they had to have a minimum amount of time to sleep so that they could turn around. So we had to wait 40, 50 extra minutes so they could rest.

They're just sitting over there having coffee, but it's a government regulation so they have to abide by it. There's nothing the gal at the front can certainly change. And I'm telling you, people are going crazy. Why wouldn't they tell us what's going on? I said, well, they just did. Well, there's something more to it than that. Something wrong with the plane. I said, well, the plane's right there. I said, well, the crew's over there. Why must this be a conspiracy? Why must Lee Harvey Oswald be involved in this time delay?

Are we so jaded that we can't accept it? And I mean, people are wired. It's 40 minutes. It's 40 minutes. And I'm just there too. I'm going... And I saw myself and I said, wait, this is stupid. See, you think you're a spiritual giant and a 40-minute plane delay has you all exercised?

Suffering Gives You Credibility and a Platform

A couple more things about suffering. It really gives you a platform from which to speak to people that are hurting. Now you can say, I've been there, done that. And all of a sudden, you talk to somebody who's lost a baby and you've experienced that, you have a whole new set of credibility with that person.

Even I think in your life, some of the ugly stuff that was in your past, that was yucky stuff. As a Christian, now you come along against somebody who's been involved in some stuff and you look at them and you go, you know what? I've been there. And they look at you and they see your act together and your family and they say, there's no way. And now you start to tell them this story.

We have a guy at our church that is a guy that I use for a lot of theology questions and a lot of different things and in a lot of venues. And people genuinely, when they meet him, are really impressed and love him. They're shocked to realize that he found Christ under a bed in a cell after committing armed robbery with sawed off shotguns and that was about His 4th or 5th time in there. Oh, that could have never happened. Wait a minute, that's what God does. That's the kind of people God uses. Boy, all of a sudden, you've got credibility.

I'll give you one more thing and then we're done with that part of it. All of a sudden, you now have the ability to teach. I think when Paul says, our momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, he speaks from a position of suffering and from teaching.

What to Do When Suffering Comes

What do you do when suffering comes? Let me give them quickly to you and you can pull them off the tape.

Number one, don't be surprised. We live in a time where there's some very bad teaching out there, especially in the charismatic Pentecostal movement. Very, very bad teaching and very damaging teaching. And one of the damaging thoughts and philosophies is this, that God wants you healthy and wealthy. Let me help you out here. God may want you sick and He may want you poor. There are a lot better lessons learned in the mid-80s than there were in the mid-90s.

You just got to understand when all these trials come, various trials come. Understand that you shouldn't be surprised by it. When, not if.

Here you go. Commit yourself to the Lord. Suffering comes, the first thing you want to do is say, listen, I'm going to this word, I'm trusting my God and I'm relying on that, let alone nothing else.

Three, don't try to understand all this stuff. Why? Why would God do this? Why would God allow this? I don't know. Probably never going to know. Certainly aren't going to know today. And I'll tell you, there's a certain arrogance in thinking God owes you an answer. Just because you have a question doesn't mean God owes you an answer. He's God, you're not. He's under no obligation to explain any of this stuff to you. But we do know this, the stuff that He wanted to make sure you knew, He put in this book. So find it out.

Here's number four, this is a big one. Realize you're not the only person that's ever gone through this. Oh, I do this every time I get the flu. No one's ever had the flu like this. No one's ever been this sick. No one's ever lost a deal before. No one's ever had a spouse leave. Oh, suck it up, pal. There's a bunch of people that have been through this.

Here you go, number five. And this comes almost instinctively. Pray. Pray, because that shows you dependence on Him. That shows that you're acknowledging that He has the circumstances under control. God, I don't want this. This is not something I would have picked, but you either caused it or allowed it. I can't

In fact, that moves me to the next thing. And I thank God for it. Last year at Thanksgiving, when you were listing all these things, you're thankful for the house, the bread, and so on. Did you add to it, "God, thanks for the suffering that You've given us this year"? Because in the midst of that suffering is when I find real joy. And it's when I find endurance.

Don't Become a Martyr or Create Needless Suffering

Two more things. Don't become a martyr. You will find great compassion and empathy among your fellow brothers and sisters as you suffer, but not if you become a victim in the midst of it.

Here's another one. I can't believe I even need to say it, but I've met people who do it. Don't suffer needlessly. There's enough suffering coming. You don't have to go create it. See, some people love that. They want to suffer. And a lot of people are just sick people who want to suffer because then the attention's on them. How are you? Fine.

There's a very important point in Jesus' ministry when He comes to a man who's been sick since birth, and Jesus asks him some fascinating questions. Jesus said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" And we would think, "Gosh, I would think that'd be..." But you know what? Maybe the man's become very comfortable with this lifestyle.

The Secret of Perspective

I'm driving along one day, and I'm listening to a tape. And that night I call Larry Wright, and I say, "Larry, here's what I heard in the tape today. A guy said this. He said, 'I would rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.'" Larry said, "Man, that's really good." And I said, "Well, that was you on a tape." He said, "I don't remember saying that." And he said, "Let me get a pen. What was that again?"

Listen to this. This is the secret, and this spins us into next week. This is pure wisdom. I would rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.

See, when I have to take all this life, and I have to take it and put it in perspective, what I need to understand is that what I see is temporal. The things I don't see are eternal. And what drives us is something different than drives the rest of the world. We're not driven by the circumstances of this world. We're driven by the realities of the next. We'll look at it next week.

Father, help us see that. Help us understand that. God, help us accept and grow from suffering. Not push it away, but embrace it. And understand that You're at work in it, that everything that happens in our life in this world was either caused by or allowed by You. Because You're a sovereign, holy God with a plan, and we're part of it. God, we love You. We worship You. We praise You. In Jesus' name, amen.