After posting a little meditation on endurance from Colossians 1, someone said that everyone with a chronic condition should read it. It made me think about what else I would say to encourage someone like that. Not that there aren’t already dozens of books about suffering and dealing with chronic brokenness of all kinds—I’ve read a few and been encouraged. But what would I say right now, from my own point in the journey? In short order I had outlines for two more posts. This first post will lay out a few theological teachings that anchor my experience—or perhaps the Christian experience—of chronic trials. The second will open up a few suggestions for how to move forward.
Theology is life
What grounds your reactions to hard things? Whether you realize it or not, you are cultivating the soil of your life and scattering the seeds of your reactions well before the hard times come. When the storms come and water that field, the seeds you’ve planted spring to life and start blossoming. What you nurture your soul with in general will give rise to how you respond to trials in particular. That’s why theology is important. Nourishing your soul with the profound doctrines of the gospel during good times will prepare you to learn and live faithfully during hard times.
I’m not writing a book here, so I can’t say everything. I’ll just give three theological truths that are especially difficult for you to hear if you’re suffering right now. Why hit the difficult ones? Because on the one hand these are the truths that become painfully unavoidable when you find yourself in chronic suffering, and on the other hand they become the bedrock for peace in that same suffering. These doctrines are unfortunately the stuff of Christian cliche for some, so they could come across as trite and insincere. But try to remember that I’m there with you, and that these are hard for me sometimes, too. I’m not talking down to you in a simplistic sort of “take two verses and that should fix your attitude” sort of approach. I’m trying to help you down the path of “great endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11). It’s a path I’ve begun to see for myself, although my heart stumbles off it as much as on it as I learn my way forward.
Truth #1: God could heal you, but he hasn’t
I could have titled this section, “God is sovereign,” but you would’ve just scrolled past it to the next section, or maybe bailed on this article altogether. And I wouldn’t blame you. Of course we believe God is all-powerful and in control. It’s the cliche-est of the cliches. But you have to reckon with this reality when life turns painful. And when you do you find that the otherwise attractive fact of God’s sovereignty translates to your situation in a poignantly painful way: he could heal you, but he hasn’t. And there’s an important corollary that may feel even worse: he could have prevented your suffering, but he didn’t.
Regardless of how you understand a sovereign God’s relationship to human agency or free will—whether you’re Calvinist or Arminian, libertarian or compatibilist—you should believe that he created this universe knowing all that would happen in it. He knew, and he created it anyway. Rather than create a universe where evil and pain could never happen, he chose to create this universe, allow the brokenness, and then enter into it to redeem it himself. There’s more to the “problem of evil,” but the limited point I’m making now is simply that God is in control of your life.
Why is it so important to believe that God rules over even the details of your life? Because comfort in hardship begins with knowing that what is happening to you is not the result of random chance but divine choice. Your pain may be the result of forces beyond your control and independent of choices you’ve made, but nothing in the universe is outside the control of the Creator. Of course, a sufferer may fairly wonder, “what is God doing with this irresistible control?”
Truth #2: God is purposeful
If God is in control, it follows immediately in Scripture that he is using his omnipotence to achieve his purposes. His good purposes. I’ve noticed over the years that some Christians tend to conceive of God’s sovereignty as simply the unlimited exercise of raw power. But God exerts his power according to his character and his wisdom, both of which are perfect. So what God has ordained—what he allows or doesn’t allow in his universe—is not just under his control but according to his purposes.
“But what purpose could there possibly be in this??” I know what that feels like. But Scripture is chock full of examples of divinely purposeful suffering (Abraham & Sarah, Job, Joseph, Moses, Hannah, David, Mary, Paul, and Jesus, just to name some really famous ones). And the Bible contains not only examples, but actual teaching so that we’ll know that those stories are not unique in the human race—our suffering also has purpose. The psalmist repeatedly testifies that suffering drew him nearer to God in trust and repentance. Paul affirms that our testing produces all kinds of character. Peter teaches that trials produce endurance.
For me, the key biblical moment is in Genesis 50:20. After Joseph’s sad story of suffering abuse and injustice, his testimony to his brothers is, “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.” I’ve tried to parse that statement out and find some nuance in the Hebrew that would justify a slightly different meaning for the second use of “planned” there, but it’s just too plain: God is not reacting to the evil/tragic events in Joseph’s life. He’s not improvising. He’s working out his good purpose through events that he intended to allow. Joseph is reflecting the same attitude Job had at the moment he lost everything: “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” (Job 2:10). The word for “adversity” in Hebrew is a general word for evil. Other versions translate it as “evil, trouble, bad.” Job is not accusing God of committing evil, but he understands that even the dark things that happen in the world are still under the umbrella of God’s sovereign, purposeful rule.
I’ll be honest, though: simply knowing that God has good purposes for my chronic illness doesn’t make my joints hurt less. Most days I’m much more ready to accept relief from his hand (“good”) and not aches, pains, and fatigue (“evil”). But the many promises in God’s Word that he is doing good to me (and to others through me, like Joseph) even when I’m in pain is helping me develop a sense of grateful determination to endure by the power he pours into my weakness. And that brings me to a third truth.
Truth #3: God is full of mercy for you
This is the easiest of the three “hard truths,” and it’s only hard because we have to fit it together with the first two truths. When we pray for God’s mercy for ourselves or others who are in hardship, our default meaning is, “Lord, in your mercy please relieve the pain.” Now make sure you hear this: it’s not wrong to pray that. It’s good to trust in the healing mercies of the Great Physician, and to call upon him in faith that he will heal. But we must also be ready—in that same faith—to receive grace to endure rather than mercy to be healed. Both are God’s gift to his children, chosen by him in his purposeful, wise, sovereign rule. Whether I’m healed or not, God is still merciful to me.
The apostle Paul testifies to this abundantly in his New Testament letters. A passage that has challenged me for decades is 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, his famous “thorn in the flesh” testimony. Verse 9 is God’s response to Paul’s repeated pleas for relief from the pain, and it’s easy to quote: “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in (your) weakness.” Isn't that awesome? No matter how deep the suffering, God's strengthening grace is exactly what we will need to endure it faithfully! But Paul’s response to this divine encouragement is more difficult to embrace:
“Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10 (CSB)
If I could dare to paraphrase, it might go like this: “So I’m going to be proud of my weaknesses because they provide a theater for the power of Christ. Instead of nagging God to remove my pain because I’m fearful and frustrated, I’m going to rejoice in how his power meets my weakness. God has given me a task that is impossible even in the best of health and life circumstances. But he’s also given me a painful handicap that makes success on my own completely out of the question. So all I can do is yield to his good purposes as I do my best, then grin and say, ‘watch what he does now.’ If that’s how Jesus can be portrayed most vividly in my life, I’m all for it.”
I think it’s a wild irony that in English the word “patient” can mean both “victim of chronic disorder,” as in “he is a rheumatoid arthritis patient” and “an attitude of unperturbed endurance in the face of hardship,” as in “she was patient with the long delay.” As child of a Heavenly Father who is sovereign, purposeful, and merciful, you can face chronic suffering as a patient patient, living in the daily strength he supplies for your weakness.
I have a few more specific thoughts on what that looks like, which I’ll share in the next post.
