So often people come to see me wondering, what on earth is the purpose in their hardship and suffering. It is a lofty and perplexing question, that leaves even purveyors of theological graces like me standing and looking skyward for answers to such questions.
A fresh revelation has me offer this answer. Out of the title of this article the two operative words are ‘in’ and ‘beyond’.
~
To imagine there is a purpose BEYOND hardship and suffering we must necessarily infer that there is a purpose IN hardship and suffering. But if we are only to imagine there is a purpose BEYOND hardship and suffering, we will FIND the purpose IN it.
I hope that’s not too confusing.
So if we are to see that there is a purpose beyond in hardship and suffering, we will continue to have hope despite the threat of despair. In simply reminding ourselves that there is a good purpose beyond hardship and suffering, we are given our way through, and we have a reason to choose to be resilient.
Not that we will always get it right. We will often stumble and fall, getting it wrong, needing to forgive ourselves, needing to be forgiven by others.
Getting it wrong from time to time, whilst also being on the journey of a reasonable resilience within the hardship and suffering, we find that we don’t need to be anything like perfect. Good enough, most of the time, is good enough.
An integral part of the journey is being able to reconcile our fear, guilt, and shame as we go, when we get it wrong. We must be able to afford ourselves grace in our time of need. If others deserve to be forgiven, we do too.
Holding out hope that there is a purpose beyond our hardship and suffering, helps us IN the hardship and suffering.
This is pretty much what faith is all about. It’s about borrowing a reasonable and good hope from the future, dragging it back to the present, and focusing in on it, as our modus operandi. And anything that leads us to living a more hope-filled life within the season or life situation that is perplexingly impossible to reconcile, is a good faith in a good hope, and the resilience we enjoy is the fruit of such faith.
~
The purpose beyond hardship and suffering is a state of learned and adapted resilience that we bear for such a life lived. Every time we look back, we see the faithfulness of God who gave us strength in our weakness, who gave us a skerrick of hope in the rising despair of a moment going south. We see what we have been able to endure and withstand!
Rather than simply be crushed by overwhelming lament, we are encouraged that we kept on getting up off the canvas of life, after each body blow, even if it took us longer at times.
We see that God has even used the hardships and suffering we have endured to strengthen us for the present-day challenges that would be enormous just months or a few years ago. Hardship and suffering therefore have equipping properties about them. Not least how we use our experiences to help and encourage others.
Not that we have glorified hardship and suffering, or having overcome, yet we are simply grateful for the times that we have endured.
The purpose IN hardship and suffering is the purpose beyond it all.
We must not lose sight that what we are enduring now is sowing up for ourselves capacity for tomorrow; for a tomorrow that may indeed demand more from us than what today’s does.
~
All this needs to be undergirded with support to help us. It’s fine to imagine that we’re capable of resilient choices, but without help, support, and assistance along the way—from wise and encouraging others who love us—it will be too much for us.
This is all about the resources we need to tap into. Don’t forget, none of us are alone along the journey. We need each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment