In my new book, Surviving the Suffering, I try and delineate the different forms of suffering so that one may determine exactly which form is causing the difficulty. So many times people think they are suffering for one reason when it is really another, and the mistake leads to much distress and doing the wrong things to correct it.
Many people have read the book and taken it to heart, and for that I am grateful. However, I am sure that all authors at one time or another have looked at their work and thought that it was imperfect and could be tweaked here or there. Having spoken with several readers, I can tell that the book has made perfect sense to them and they are applying the lessons of the book to their lives with good result. Now that I can see the actual impact the book is making, I am also beginning to see some trends.
If we look at the different types of suffering as I have categorized it, there is Punishment, which is reserved for the unbeliever, and it has no redemptive qualities. It does not improve the individual's relationship with God because they do not have one. Then there is Chastisement, which is when a believing Christian commits sin and God must correct them, often painfully, to get them to repent, be forgiven, and restore that relationship. There is Pruning, which involves a Christian who may not be willfully disobedient, but needs to let God remove from them things which are not Christ-like in order that they may bear more fruit. Other categories would include Spiritual Warfare, where the Christian is being attacked by Satan, and suffering for Christ, as in persecution.
It is certainly possible to suffer more than one type of suffering over the course of one's lifetime, and I have seen this in my own life as well as that of others. You can imagine an unbeliever, who first suffers Punishment as a non-Christian. This same person may be converted by receiving Christ, yet still slip and fall into old sinful habits and require Chastisement. Later, as spiritual maturity and sanctification occur, the Christian undergoes Pruning as part of furthering the sanctification process. Then the Christian lives a life more pleasing to God, sinning less and being fruitful, yet suffering Spiritual Warfare attacks. Finally, for a few Christians (and rarely in this country), they may be martyred for their faith. There is an evolution of Christian behavior in the believer's life, and a resultant change in the forms of suffering as well.
So, some of this suffering is actually due to our own actions and sin, and we are indeed responsible for our misery. Yet as Christians, as we become sanctified, we should become more and more like Christ and hopefully sin less and less. Although many mature Christians still slip and sin, their lives are not characterized by sin. It is the hallmark of the mature Christian that they are acutely aware of their sin nature and how they do not deserve the blessing of salvation that is bestowed upon them because of the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Salvation is a gift of grace, giving to us that which we have not earned and do not deserve.
The mature Christian has in his memory the sins he has committed and how he suffered as a result. He also has an awareness of his fallen sin nature, and how he does not deserve to be saved based on his sinful life. In Romans 3:23 we learn that, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The Christian has experience, therefore of being responsible for the suffering as a result of their prior sinful actions.
What must happen next is that the Christian must realize that they are not responsible for all of the suffering that occurs in their life. I think what I see in the unbeliever is a tendency to deny any responsibility for causing their own suffering as a result of sinful actions, and a tendency of the believer to believe that they are responsible for all their suffering. This is not true. In Surviving the Suffering I take great pains to show people how to avoid this trap. Many are able to now recognize that they are saved Christians who are not being Punished, and that they are not commiting sin requiring Chastisement.
What I am seeing, however, is that some people just can not let go of the notion that somehow they must still be responsible for the bad things that are occuring in their life, even if they are cognizant that they are not out of God's will. They still believe it must be their fault in some way or the other. So they assume that they are being Pruned of some undesirable quality. This may be the case, but it could very well be that they are under Spiritual Warfare attacks or that they may just be suffering from the common maladies we all face as the result of living in a fallen world.
The difference between all of these types of suffering is crucial, and the responses required are all quite different. Surviving the Suffering, the book, helps sort all of this out. I will try and explore some of these issues in upcoming posts. When suffering, examine your life and look for sin, but do not let your "default" position be that it is always "my fault."
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