by Becca Ferguson
Romans 5:1-5 tells us, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
My initial blog post leading up to CVC’s Night of Prayer goes into much more detail about the theology of suffering than this post will. But just to lay a foundation to build upon, I want us to consider Romans 5:1-5, and use these verses to help us consider that in order to suffer well,
- We must be justified (we have already invited Jesus to be the forgiver and leader of our lives – as we see in verse 1).
- We are being sanctified (that is, we are being made to be more and more like Jesus as we are shaped by the Holy Spirit and as we “continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling” – as we see in verses 2-5).
- Finally, we must learn to rejoice in our suffering and trust in the sovereign God who ordains all that happens in our lives (as we see in verses 3-5).
If any part of this short list is missing, we will struggle to suffer well. We have to see kingdom reality, and see our own lives as they fit into that reality, in the way that God sees them. We need God’s eyes to see our own brokenness, our need for Him, the gift He offers us in the gospel, and the purpose that He has for us.
Because ultimately, God does not desire most that we live comfortable lives. God does not desire most that we get everything we want on this side of heaven. God does not desire most that we miss out on knowing Him because we are so caught up in trying to be successful or happy in the here and now.
God wants us to grow to be more and more like Him. God created us to know and worship Him. God loves us – and because He loves us, He wants His purpose in and for our lives.
And God will use suffering – whatever kind it is (for more info on the types of suffering see my last blog post) – in our lives as a way to draw us closer to Him and make us more like Him.
And when we see what God can do in our suffering, we are able to rejoice in it, because we see it as an opportunity for God’s goodness to reach further into our lives – as an opportunity for us to grow in endurance, and character, and hope in Jesus. And this is all possible because of the work of God – because of the love He has poured into our hearts from the Holy Spirit, love for Him, and love for others, too.
Because in our suffering we grow closer to God (if Jesus is our leader and forgiver and if we submit our lives to Him), and then we also can live out this suffering before others, to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ and to show a picture of Jesus to people we know who are far from Him.
This sounds simple when we look at Romans 5 and take a few moments to think about these ideas. It can seem straightforward, even. But when the rubber meets the road, it’s definitely not easy – as many of you can attest.
I want to share a little bit of my story, in the hopes that it might help you think about your own story. And in the hopes that it might help you to consider how God might be working and moving in past and present suffering to draw you closer to Him and to grow your love for Him, to dim your love for the things of this world as you grow to be more like Him, and to give you an opportunity to image the gospel in a unique way to the people around you who need Jesus.
When I had my daughter Vivian almost two years ago, it did not go well. I was extremely injured from the birth, and I lost a lot of blood. I had to have two blood transfusions and two iron transfusions in the hospital. I had some nerve damage and other problems, too. But the biggest issue I had was that my bladder stopped working, which I found out at an emergency room visit about four days after Vivian was born.
At the emergency room, they put in a Foley catheter that stayed in when I left the ER. From there, I had a follow-up visit with a urology PA who sent me to a urology surgeon. These doctors told me, “We don’t know if your bladder will wake up. It might. It might not. We just have to wait and see. And there’s nothing you can do to help it wake up. Either your body will heal, or, if there’s enough nerve damage, it might not.”
And then I waited. One week turned into two, two weeks turned into four, and finally four turned into six – and my bladder was still asleep.
Now, almost two years later, six weeks doesn’t sound like such a long time. But during those six weeks, every day and every night felt so long. And I had to face the reality that my faith was a lot weaker than I had thought. I kept wrestling with the Lord in my prayers, and I was so angry.
I kept telling God, I just want to be healthy so that I can serve you! So that I can do my work at CVC; so that I can take care of my daughter the way I imagined doing it; so that I can do stuff that you say is good stuff!
And the Lord, in His mercy, kept inviting me to consider – what if your plan for your life, even if it is filled with good things, is not the plan I have for you? Are you willing to submit to me, even if my good plan for you doesn’t seem good to you at all? Are you willing to trust me even if my plan for you involves inefficiency, suffering, frustration, and pain? How far is your faith going to go?
And I realized in those weeks that my faith was weak. I realized there was a road the Lord might be taking me on that I did not want to walk. I thought I had submitted everything to Him already – but God used those weeks to show me, in physical and emotional suffering, that I was holding back ideas about my life, and plans for my future, that I did not want Him to mess with.
I realized I didn’t want to suffer, even if that was what God had for me. If that was His plan, I didn’t want it – I wanted my own pln.
So – when that’s where we find ourselves – where do we go from there?
For me, I had to go back to the basics and ask myself the question, “What is true?”
What’s true is that I am saved – Jesus is my forgiver and leader (verse 1 of Romans 5). Also, I am being made a little more like Jesus every day, in a combination of my own effort and the work of the Holy Spirit in me (verse 2 of Romans 5). And finally, in the power and by the work of the Spirit, Scripture tells me that I can rejoice in my suffering, because as Romans 5:3-5 puts it: “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
I had to pray that God would keep changing my heart, and I had to be honest with Him that there was a resistance in me to suffering, even if it was His plan. And I had to ask the Holy Spirit to step into even that space in my heart, and work to make me more and more like Jesus, who loved me and gave Himself up for me, even to the point of death on a cross.
And for me, this time, my bladder woke up. After six weeks, it started working again. One day it didn’t work – and then one day it did. And I believe that was the work of God in response to many, many prayers.
And even now, just a couple of years later, God has given me eyes to see some of the ways He was growing me in that time. And He has so graciously given me the opportunity to talk with other women going through similar things, and I’ve seen His goodness in using my story to help me trust Him more and to allow me to point others to Him in a new way.
But … that’s not the end of my story. There will be other seasons of suffering. There will be more seasons of confusion. Some of them, God may take away. At times, He will choose to heal.
But other times, He won’t. Other times, I will suffer. And one day, I will die. Like Pastor Joe said a few weeks ago about the people in Capernaum whom Jesus healed – one day, they all got sick again, and they died.
And my hope on that day, just like every other day, will be built upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. My suffering will end in glory because of who Jesus is and what He has done.
So, this is the perspective we are all invited to have, and it’s the perspective I am praying to have on this day and every day. I want to remember that I’m headed to eternity, one way or another. Will I submit to whatever plan God has for my life until then? Will I walk through suffering, through whatever He allows to come my way, trusting Him, knowing He will use it, and desiring that I might, little by little, in my suffering come to know and trust and love Him more?
That’s my prayer for my life, and my prayer for yours, too.
If you’d like, take some time to pray that:
- Jesus will grow your ability to see suffering, both His suffering in Scripture and your own suffering in your life, as He sees it.
- Jesus will give you faith to trust in Him – whether initially (if you need to invite Him to be your forgiver and leader) or in an ongoing manner – whatever life brings.
- Jesus will use your suffering to show others your faith in Him, and show them their own need for Him to be their forgiver and leader.
- Jesus will remind you of His nearness in all seasons, and that even in seasons of suffering, you will find joy in worshiping Him.
