Reconceptualizing Suffering
Rikki Permenter, MAMFC, Th. M.
Death, taxes, and suffering are said to be the only things you can’t escape in life. Everyone experiences each regardless of their age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or religion. When suffering comes, as it inevitably does, it is hard to think of any good that could ever come from it.
In Genesis 50, after Joseph experienced being hated by his own brothers, sold, forced into slavery, lied about, and forgotten he said something profound about the nature of suffering. In Genesis 50:20, he says to his brothers “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” In the midst of great suffering he was able to see things that happened to him, even though they were horrible, brought about something good for himself and subsequently for an entire nation. He was able to see the big picture. Just like Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor, is quoted in Man’s Search For Meaning saying “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
Take a moment to think about suffering in your own life from a big picture prospective and see if you can find times where suffering lead you to see a great thing God was doing. If you can’t find the good in it yet, don’t worry! Sometimes you won’t see the big picture on what God is doing until the other side of Heaven. Just know that in hard times we serve a good God who acts for his glory and our goodness.
This article can be found in print in the monthly Baptist Association of Southeast Louisiana newsletter.
