Suffering Changes Us

[00:00:02] Hey, Better Days family. Welcome to Better Days podcast season nine. This season of the Better Days podcast, we're going to talk about different aspects of mental health and suffering. Throughout these episodes, we're going to lay a theological framework for

[00:00:16] each topic, flesh out misunderstandings that we sometimes hold, and offer practical advice and tips to help you along in your journey through mental health and suffering. We're going to be joined by various friends that I'm so glad are sharing their expertise and advice

[00:00:34] on these important and valuable conversations. If you're new to Better Days, we're a non-profit seeking to bring hope, awareness, and education to all things mental health and suffering. We help churches, people, and leaders understand the intersection between mental health and

[00:00:51] suffering and following Jesus. For more content from Better Days or to support our work, check out our website, betterdaysfmy.co. Let's jump into this week's episode. Most of us don't initially love the idea that suffering forms everyone. Most of us don't

[00:01:11] wake up in the morning in the midst of suffering and think, oh, this can be a catalyst for change in my life. But that doesn't mean it's not true because suffering is a catalyst, a powerful

[00:01:25] influential catalyst for change in everybody's life. There is a text in the New Testament that really highlights this reality for followers of Jesus. It's Romans 5 verses 3-5 and Paul is writing this talking about our redemption, how we're saved, we're forgiven, Jesus has redeemed our life.

[00:01:49] And he talks about how we have peace with God and we've gained access into the grace of God and we have hope for future with the glory of God, meaning we're going to be in a place that

[00:02:01] is perfect and flawless and there's no pain and no suffering and no shame. But then he talks about our present reality. He goes, here's your future reality, but here's your present reality. Verse 3,

[00:02:12] not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings. And automatically we hear those words and we're like, wait a minute, I don't glory in my sufferings, but let us explain. He keeps continuing in his thought by explaining, because we know that suffering produces perseverance,

[00:02:32] perseverance character and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. That's a definitive declaration that there's something in the recipe

[00:02:50] of suffering in human life that can produce some valuable things. Jason, you and I, we're in this gym thing right now. You're lifting weights six days a week. You're training your son... Seven days.

[00:03:05] Seven days a week. You're training your son to lift weight seven days a week. How cool, amazing. But just think of that. You're a father and you're taking your son with you. And some days in the gym

[00:03:17] are really hard, like painful. And our muscles are literally breaking down. But what is produced on the other side of that pain? Stronger physique, healthy, neurochemical reactions happening in your brain, your body functions better,

[00:03:37] your mental health feels better. So many valuable things. And I think that's just a great practical illustration. Yeah. The only difference I would say is I signed up for the gym. We don't sign up for suffering. Yes, we don't sign up for suffering. That's for sure.

[00:03:49] But you don't have to, right? It's a guaranteed part of the human experience. So, Jesus, before he is about to leave his disciples, he tells them, hey, in this world, you will have

[00:03:58] trouble. So, there's this reality that suffering is a part of what we experience. And we don't have to be masochists that look for ways to have suffering enter into our life. It's going to knock

[00:04:08] on your door one day and you have to be prepared and be ready for it. So, I just want to say on the outset, the suffering will come. You don't have to look for it. But when it shows up,

[00:04:19] I think there's a couple things that have to happen. There's a connection between grief and suffering. And our suffering, we have to be honest about our suffering. I think sometimes in the Christian context, we feel this burden to say, oh, I'm feeling so blessed or God is good.

[00:04:34] Or no, like it's okay to admit as we see in the Psalms that suffering is not fun. But I think in the midst of our suffering, when we understand that this is something that God can use,

[00:04:45] not necessarily caused, that can help me be formed to be more like Jesus, that on the other end of this, I'll be more refined. I'll have more patience and my character will be developed in

[00:04:55] this. It is valuable. Because think about the other hand, what if suffering entered into our life and we just experienced it, but there was no growth that came from it? Then that wouldn't be,

[00:05:05] I don't think there's no godly redemption in it, but God has this keen ability to use even the terrible things in our lives to form us to become more like Jesus.

[00:05:14] I think suffering, there's almost phases to it. And I can't say, I can't quantify it and say it goes from one to the other. But I think that there's a point where you're so crippled by

[00:05:24] suffering that you only see yourself in it. It causes you to go inward and you're not looking around you and you're just focusing on your world and the darkness that has befallen your world and

[00:05:36] you're just in that state. And I think there comes a point as you're going through suffering where you start, you look up in a, I think this intrinsic desire to need to connect. The Lord designed us to have this interconnectedness where we start looking out at the world.

[00:05:54] And what we start looking at is the suffering that's also in the world that maybe other people don't notice because they're busying themselves. You know, I've experienced a tremendous loss. I'm in pain. I'm hurting. I've spent all this time alone. Now I'm looking up and I'm starting

[00:06:08] to notice that, wow, there's some other things happening in this world. Now that can either cripple you, take you to a darker place, or it can at some point when you're starting to get

[00:06:20] through the suffering, it motivates you to connect with it in some way. Now I'm not saying that everybody who's going through suffering has a responsibility of an assignment to do something with it. Absolutely not. What I'm saying is that there's some opportunities that people use in

[00:06:36] their healing and suffering where they go, because I've experienced this, I'm sensitive to noticing this in an environment or in someone. And I can step into that with that person. Yeah. I think when we talk about how suffering changes us, there's two opposite outcomes.

[00:06:54] One outcome is suffering changes people for the bad. People get bitter, angry, paralyzed, blame. They lose themselves in their suffering. They begin, like you said, their suffering begins to define their entire identity. They don't see themselves as having

[00:07:14] any more purpose or value. And I think those are ways that suffering can have a negative effect on our life. But suffering can also change us for the good. Like we, here's an example.

[00:07:29] Like, you know, I feel like I've said this many times, but suffering's been such a huge part of my life. And anytime that I'm going through a really painful, hard moment in my human experience,

[00:07:44] I'm not just like living life normally. I start to probe life deeply. I think things like, what in my life is really valuable? What is really important? What are my motives? What am I going

[00:08:02] after? Like, what is true and real that is actually worth living for? I start asking these soul level deep questions. And as I walk through that journey and I come out of that journey, and I've remembered

[00:08:14] doing this so many times, I have a reflective dimension of what I process through my suffering that I end up looking back and say, wow, I grew so much. Like there's things that I focused on

[00:08:30] before this situation happened that I'm realizing that was not worth my time or energy. There's things in my character that changed. I became more compassionate, more loving, more gentle. I felt and experienced God in a deeper way like I've never experienced God before.

[00:08:48] So, I think there's this opportunity to say, what is meaningful about life? What is my purpose? Am I actually like, am I walking toward like a really important, valuable purpose? Am I doing things in

[00:09:02] life that are going to produce eternal good? And maybe like you're at a moment of suffering and you're like, wow, I'm changing the entire trajectory of my life because I realized through

[00:09:11] this moment and kind of soul probing questions that the way that I'm living isn't good. And I want to live for something that is good and valuable and eternal. Suffering has this influence

[00:09:26] on our life that causes us to think. And I think that's a really healthy thing. But the thing in Romans is like resilience and character formation. Jason, you've talked about this a lot, like perseverance, resilience, how that's such an important aspect of flourishing, mental health,

[00:09:45] well-being, life in general. Well, God just makes a statement. Suffering produces perseverance. Pete Yeah. Jared This is not a new psychological discovery. This is ancient. Pete Yeah. I mean, think about it in the life of Jesus, right? Even he wasn't

[00:10:01] absent from the experience of suffering, whether it be the loss of his friend Lazarus, whether it be not being accepted in his hometown. But ultimately, the ultimate suffering was on the cross. And there's an interesting statement that said in the Bible that for the joy that was set

[00:10:19] before him, he endured the cross. So Jesus just had this proper perspective on suffering that, hey, on the other end of this, there's going to be something that this produces that is good in me.

[00:10:29] And I think resilience, the way that resilience is beat, is not beat, is developed, is by knowing that what I'm experiencing, I'm going to be better because of it. But that's such a hard perspective to have. Like when somebody is dealing with cancer,

[00:10:43] or they've got a sick kid, or they've got a chronic illness, it is difficult to have that perspective. And I understand that, right? Like, it's hard for us to think past what we're currently

[00:10:53] experiencing. I want to acknowledge that for the people who are listening to this to say, there are some terrible things that can happen in life. And if you can't have that perspective,

[00:11:03] it's understood. But I think we take it to Jesus and we spend time in prayer and we ask him to help us deal with it. Like I saw this picture the other day that freaked me out. It was

[00:11:13] of what bone cancer looks like. Have you ever seen this? Never. Oh my God. I don't Google this. The most terrifying thing you've ever seen in your life. And people were talking about their

[00:11:21] experience with bone cancer and the excruciating pain that they go through that not even morphine can help them. And so when you think about people experiencing that level of suffering, if they're not thinking about, oh, this is producing patients in me, I don't think that

[00:11:35] makes them immature. That makes them human. That makes them acknowledge this is hard. But I think what we do as an outsider, when we have someone who's experiencing suffering is we come alongside them to help them in that process. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like, you know, resilience and

[00:11:49] perseverance. These are character traits that really, they only come through suffering. Yeah. And because we are not walking around as gods, these are the types of experience to develop that part of us, you know, developing that resilience. But it's a byproduct of it. It's not necessarily

[00:12:07] you're in the suffering going, OK, let's see where I am on the resilience scale today. It's a looking back actually to see I made it through. I'm still here. You know, it was hard.

[00:12:20] There were dark times, but I'm still standing. I'm still here. I'm still, you know, operating, living. And that's when you look back and you recognize how you persevered and resilience. And also other people's stories. You know, you look back, I think back, you know, Jason and I

[00:12:36] are obviously African-Americans. And, you know, think back to the stories of our ancestors and slavery and what they've accomplished. People like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas and on and on and on. And it's like, oh, my gosh, they suffered greatly. And yet they made a tremendous

[00:12:54] impact so that we could be doing what we're doing right now to this point. And that helps us build resilience. So when Jason is talking about, you know, entering in with people, it's coming alongside them in their stories and to be there to help them. Because

[00:13:09] when you come out on the other side of suffering, it's a traumatic experience and it gets stored like Swiss cheese in your brain. You don't always remember everything of what you went through. And

[00:13:20] it's really helpful when somebody comes alongside you, who was there with you to say, you did such and such. This is what happened. This is where you are. Oh, my gosh, really? Was that? And so I think

[00:13:32] that's the beauty of coming alongside, almost becoming like an ethnographer for that person, documenting in your head all these incredible things, feats that they went through that may be hard for them to remember on the other side. Yeah. And sometimes, like you said, Jason,

[00:13:47] sometimes perseverance is just a crawl. It's like, I'm going to keep going. This is so painful. And we have the freedom, like you said, to acknowledge that as followers of Jesus. Glory in our sufferings doesn't mean we're like stoked on something that is opposite of God's

[00:14:03] original design. It means that we realize that God can do something beautiful in the midst of that. And sometimes we're just crawling. Then he says that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance leads to character. There's this statement that most people say that have suffered

[00:14:25] in their life. They say, I would never want this again. I wouldn't go back and choose this, but it has changed me. It's changed me, like as a person. Shaped me in ways that I didn't have developed in my life before suffering. And I think there's this

[00:14:49] opportunity to deepen our roots in the person of Jesus, in the way of Jesus, in the character and nature of Jesus as he interacts with us in suffering that can be so formative on our

[00:15:02] character. And again, even like the questions, the deeper questions that we ask ourself in suffering, those could be part of it. Like, who am I? Who am I becoming? Like, who do I want to become

[00:15:15] as I'm walking through this storm in my life? And I think those are healthy questions to reflect on at some point. It's not like every day in the midst of suffering, people are going

[00:15:27] to be like, oh, I've got these great questions to ask myself. Sometimes you're just trying to wake up in the morning and get through the day. Yeah. I think one of the best things that you can do, knowing that suffering is a part of the human

[00:15:38] experience is prepare yourself before you get in the suffering. Like, you never know what you're gonna experience while you're there. But if you prepare yourself before you go into it, it can help you deal with it. You know what's coming.

[00:15:50] For example, Kevin Hart, everybody knows who he is. He got in this terrible accident years ago. Yeah. And they said, the accident would have killed the average person, but because Kevin Hart had

[00:15:59] been working out hard for all this time, he was able to survive it and recover a whole lot quicker because of what he did before he got in the accident, that physically he just was in shape.

[00:16:09] That the average person, if he didn't work out like he did, would have probably died. And I think suffering is that same thing where mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, we prepare ourselves so that when we experience it, it doesn't crush us. Right? Like we're prepared

[00:16:25] for it. Like there's this verse that I always read and study. It's in Romans. It says, oh, for the suffering of this present world cannot be compared to the glory that will be

[00:16:36] revealed therein. And basically what it is saying is the suffering that you experience here on earth has nothing on the glory that we'll experience when we're with Christ. And I think meditating

[00:16:46] on that verse daily prepares me. And I hope that when I experience suffering, I'm able to have this eternal perspective that says, man, this is bad, but good is coming at some point. And I think

[00:16:57] the only way you can adequately deal with suffering as a believer is to insulate yourself and prepare yourself for it before you enter into it. Because if I try to develop my relationship with God while

[00:17:08] I'm in the midst of suffering, it's going to be hard if I haven't trained. Right? When Kevin Hart's in that accident, he can't do anything to train. It's the training that he already did. So you kind

[00:17:17] of gotta have this pre-crisis preparation before you go into a crisis in your life to help you deal with the crisis. Yeah, so good. And let me just affirm that point because I think this is

[00:17:30] so valuable in the midst of this discussion. Have a really good theology and practice of suffering before you suffer. And have some tools and concepts that you learn just like premarital counseling.

[00:17:47] It's like you get in there and you don't know a lot. How do I deal with money and conflict and sex and sexuality, all these things. You prepare yourself. I just love that concept, Jason.

[00:18:00] So, so good. But also know, like Mike Tyson said, everybody got a plan until they get hit. So your plan is probably going to be a little bit inadequate, but having a plan is better than

[00:18:09] no plan at all. Yeah, so good. And then he says character produces hope. You go from perseverance, you keep going, like you change, you form. And then you realize that there's hope,

[00:18:22] like there's hope in the midst of suffering. And what I find to be fascinating is the last verse, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts. In other words, when we're suffering, we have hope because God loves us

[00:18:39] and His love is literally welling up within us. If there's not a motivator to keep following Jesus in the midst of suffering, this is the one. Like it's not God saying you better be perfect,

[00:18:54] you better have it all together because suffering is messy. It's messy in the soul, it's messy in relationships, it's hard, it's confusing, it's disorienting. But God's like, in the midst of all of that, I want you to know experientially that my love is inside of you.

[00:19:12] And I am reminding you of how much I love you, even in the midst of this moment. And part of that love is just present, like relational help and strength. And part of the communication of

[00:19:24] that love is like, we know that God is creating a better world in the future that is going to be void of pain and suffering. So we have hope in our relationship with God in the present,

[00:19:35] and we have hope in our relationship with God in the future. And I just think that's beautiful because every person needs hope in suffering. I think that's why it's important as believers, you've got people entering into the suffering, you've got people who are in it, and you've got

[00:19:50] people who just came out of it or people who've been out of it. And it's so important for us to share our stories, share our stories and share how we got through, share how we experienced God in

[00:20:02] that, share our perspective out of that. Because when you're in that suffering, it's so hard for you. If it's hard for you to connect spiritually, if it's hard for you to look at that scripture

[00:20:11] and say, I get it, I know it, I just can't feel it yet. What about if you have other voices echoing? Let me tell you what I went through. Let me tell you how God got me through this. Let me tell you

[00:20:22] where I am on the other side of it. Those are just repetitive, it's a repetitive message coming through God and through God's people about how they experienced suffering and how they got on

[00:20:33] the other side of it and that, hey, there's hope. This is me on the other side telling you this is how it is. And I think that all too often we get through it and we're so happy that we got through

[00:20:42] it that we're just ready to move on with our lives, which we should, very healthy. And there's still value in being able to share those stories when there are people out there who are just starting

[00:20:54] out or in the midst of it who could really benefit from hearing that. So good. Last words right there. I just think this is an important conversation to really redeem our thoughts around how we change in

[00:21:07] the midst of suffering. And it's not something a lot of people talk about, but it's not even something that everybody realizes, but it's reality for all of us. And I just want to circle

[00:21:20] back to Jason's point. It doesn't mean it's easy. No. And you have permission to be honest about the hard moments and the pain in your suffering. And God cares about you. He loves you. He's

[00:21:32] flooding your heart with His love in the midst of your suffering. And because of that, we believe there's hope in better days ahead. Thank you for joining us today. We would love

[00:21:45] for you to help in spreading the word about Better Days Podcast so that we can bring hope and help to people navigating mental health challenges or suffering of any kind. We would

[00:21:56] love if you let a friend know who may be walking through a hard moment, or you can also share on your social channels. We appreciate every person's support. You can find more resources at betterdaysfmy.co. Join us for another episode next week. There are better days ahead.