God’s Gift in Suffering

I’m not always the best gifter. Every year at Christmas, I make a list of all the loved ones I want to buy gifts for and stare at the empty document, hoping amazing ideas will pop into my brain. Most of us hope to find an item that will cause that great “Oh!” of surprise as they tear open the box and exclaim their joy over their gift. But as the day draws nearer and we still haven’t found that perfect gift, we may begin to lower our standards and simply look for something that won’t be a complete dud. 

When teaching about prayer, Jesus declared that our Heavenly Father is the perfect gift-giver. “Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matt. 7:9–11 CSB). Jesus’ brother James later wrote, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (Jas. 1:17). While my vision at the store can often get distorted by what I would want rather than what my loved one would actually want, God knows us fully and gives generously. His gifts are always right and perfect.

Few would argue this truth. Yet when it comes to suffering, we seem to forget Jesus’ basic words about good gifts. When fiery trials begin to burn the soles of our feet, we encourage one another, “This is a good gift from God! Thank him for it!” Yet when we declare the most painful suffering to be a gift from the abounding loving kindness of our Heavenly Father, I believe we are making God out to be the father who gave his child a snake when the child asked for a fish.

God promises to use our suffering for our good (Rom. 8:28), but that doesn’t make the suffering good. God calls us to rejoice through our suffering (James 1:2–4), but he doesn’t call the suffering itself a celebration. God called all of creation good and very good, yet suffering came as part of the curse of sin. Where there is death, abuse, injustice, and loss, God grieves the marring of his creation. 

I had this idea in my mind that if I could look at my suffering with a smile smeared on my face and gratitude scribbled in my journal, I had reached a higher level of spiritual maturity. If I could praise God for my miscarriages, my terrifying intrusive thoughts, my crippling panic attacks, and all such suffering, then I was better than those who mourned theirs. Yet is there a greater holiness and maturity than Jesus himself, who wept for his dead friend and his mourning relatives, who cried for wayward Jerusalem, and who shed sweat droplets of blood for the agony he knew he had to endure? 

Jesus grieved suffering because this world was never meant to bear it. As Professor Kelly Kapic writes,

While God can and does bring about good through our suffering, that is not the same thing as knowing why God allows it. Nor is it the same thing as saying that God thinks our suffering is good. If we believe that God thinks our physical suffering is essentially good, we misunderstand the Creator and Redeemer, and we are brought to the temptation of having hard thoughts about God, believing him to be more like a dispassionate scientist or a cruel tyrant rather than a loving Father. While it is true that amid our fallen world God can and does work through our pain and suffering, that does not mean he delights in our discomfort. (Embodied Hope, p. 23)

While we emphasize the idolatry of loving the gift more than the Giver, we have created another kind of idolatry over our suffering in worshiping it and all the apparent gifts that might come from it. We steel our gaze forward, setting our eyes on what our suffering could produce for us rather than on the God who is present with us

God is who we rejoice in during our suffering. We first rejoice in him who promises to never forsake us and carry us through when—not if—our legs give way to the consuming flames. He is what we cling to in suffering, not what our suffering could become. It’s not about us gathering our wits about us so we can make something of this suffering, but clinging desperately to Christ because our faith can’t survive this thorn and briar laden world unless he takes hold of us first.

When we change our perspective to see that God believes our suffering isn’t good as well, suddenly lament doesn’t feel disrespectful towards God. Our lament isn’t a complaint against his “good gift” to us, but a holy cry of agreement that his world is marred by sin. Our lament isn’t about learning to love the pain in our lives, but longing and aching for the day when it’s all relieved. Lament isn’t about trusting the outcome we can garner from our suffering, but hoping in our God who makes all things new. 

This is the good gift God gives us in suffering: Himself. God doesn’t abandon us in our suffering but draws near, and two thousand years ago he drew near in the Person of Jesus Christ to one redeem us for a future where all suffering, illness, and pain will be done away with. There, we will stand, unhindered, in his presence and he’ll wipe away our tears. This is God’s gift to us in suffering. Though we struggle and debate what we should give to those we love, God in his perfect wisdom and love, gives us the greatest gift we never deserved.