Let Suffering Speak: From Escape to Endurance
When Pain Comes, Don't Run
Suffering shows up, and we instinctively look for the fastest way out. Our culture offers quick comfort: take something, scroll endlessly, drown it out with noise. Sadly, the church sometimes reflects that same instinct, preaching a shallow gospel that claims faith should eliminate hardship. But trying to rush through pain or escape it causes us to miss what God is doing in the midst of it. Scripture never promises escape from suffering; it promises purpose in it. Pain is not a malfunction but a tool God uses to shape us. Jesus did not avoid His cross, and we are not promised a detour around ours. When we stop running from suffering, we discover it has something vital to accomplish.
To avoid suffering in pursuit of ease and comfort is to believe Satan's original lie: "You will not surely die." In that moment, Satan established a false religion that denies God's judgment while pursuing pleasure and rejecting suffering. This pattern persists today across both secular and sacred spaces. Outside the church, the answers are self-help formulas, therapy techniques, or substances, anything to silence the sting. Inside the church, the message may sound more spiritual, but it often leads to the same end. Some preach a bold prosperity gospel, claiming that if you pray harder and give more, suffering will leave. Others suggest more subtly that obedience should minimize pain or that God's sovereignty will quickly transform it into a blessing.
These approaches share a fundamental flaw: they treat suffering as God's mistake rather than His method. James 1:2–4 instructs us to "count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." The world's fast relief never lasts. The church can make suffering heavier by adding guilt to pain, as if struggling means you've failed God. Both responses rob you of the refining work God intends. Suffering reveals what you truly trust, whether your finances, health, or the idea that faith should be painless. When those securities break, you see what remains. Rushing past that revelation keeps your faith shallow and your grip tight on things God wants to remove.
Suffering teaches us what we love by taking away what we love. God uses loss to loosen our grip on what we hold too tightly, whether money, success, comfort, or control. We often don't realize we worship these things until they're threatened. Consider Job, who lost his wealth, his children, and his health. What he received was not quick relief but the voice of God. In Job 42:5, he declares, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." Suffering moved him from knowing about God to encountering God directly. Paul experienced this same dynamic with his "thorn in the flesh." There was no immediate solution, no healing, no breakthrough around the corner. Instead, God told him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). God was stripping away Paul's dependence on worldly strength so he would depend completely on divine grace.
C.S. Lewis observed that pain is God's megaphone; it wakes us up. If we silence it through distraction or false spiritual remedies, we remain asleep, clutching things that cannot last. The discomfort is not punishment but mercy, not God pushing us away but pulling us closer.
Living Through Pain
Suffering is not merely something we endure; it's how we're joined to Christ. Philippians 3:10 speaks of knowing Jesus through "the fellowship of his sufferings." First Peter 4:13 instructs us to "rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed." This transforms our understanding entirely. Isaiah 53 calls Jesus "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." The message that faith should make life comfortable contradicts the very nature of following Christ. He didn't call us to take up a blessing but a cross. When we suffer with Him, we walk His path and experience His presence in ways comfort never provides.
Rather than praying for escape, we can ask: What are you showing me? What are you cutting away? What are you building in me? The "peaceful fruit of righteousness" that Hebrews 12:11 states discipline eventually produces is made possible by this change from resistance to receptivity. Distraction, addiction, and denial are all ways that the world tries to numb pain. This reaction is all too frequently mirrored in the church, which asks God to take away hardship rather than asking for grace to bear it faithfully. The deep work taking place beneath the surface is missed by both.
How can we actually adopt this strategy when suffering occurs? First, fight the urge to fix, run, or take medication. Rather, make time for frank discussions about your experiences with God. Write down your worries, annoyances, and inquiries without attempting to find quick answers. Instead of looking for every solution right away when financial stress strikes, consider whether you have put more trust in money than in God. When health issues come up, think about what control you've been holding onto that God might be asking you to let go of before concentrating only on treatment options. This does not imply passivity or a refusal to take action. It entails asking God to use even your problem-solving skills as part of His refining process and approaching those steps from a position of dependence rather than self-reliance.
Be in the company of people who share this viewpoint. Avoid those who will only offer quick fixes or spiritual platitudes. Seek out fellow believers who can sit with you in difficulty without rushing to eliminate it. Romans 8:18 provides a crucial perspective: "The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Suffering will not have the final word in our story, but it serves an essential purpose in the present chapter.
Revelation 21:4–5 offers the ultimate hope: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Additionally, there won't be any more pain, grief, or mourning. Because the former are no longer in existence. And the one sitting on the throne declared, "Look, I'm creating everything from scratch." This promise places current suffering in the context of God's eternal plan rather than downplaying it. What feels overwhelming today is accomplishing something eternal, not just in what awaits us, but in who we're becoming through the process. Don't hurry suffering. Stand firm in it. God is producing something that will outlast every temporary comfort this world offers. Your current struggles seem insignificant in comparison to the glory that is being prepared for you by the refining work that is taking place within you today.
Joy is found when God is present in pain, not when it is absent. We find that even the most difficult situations can serve as stepping stones to a closer relationship with God when we learn to embrace suffering as a tool for growth rather than avoiding it.
