Psalm 119:71 Good Books

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

Psalm 119:71

Many people struggle with the idea that suffering and affliction is a good thing.

David: You know the shortest verse of the Bible, Jacob?

Jacob: No

David: Jesus wept.

Jacob: Jesus wept...

David: One of the biggest problems we have with people today is for some reason they have it in their head that they shouldn't have any troubles, that suffering is a mistake, or it's unfair, or it's God being ornery. But what if suffering is the point? So that we can learn to let go and be easy in the Spirit. 

This quote comes from the Paramount Network limited TV series Waco. It's a conversation between cult leader David Koresh and an ATF agent. It represents an extreme interpretation of scriptures about suffering.

Believing "suffering is the point" led Koresh to seek out suffering, not only for himself, but for the people who followed his cult.

The point is not to suffer, and not to "let go and be easy", but to follow God. His reasons and His methods aren't always easy to understand, but the key is to seek to understand Him though His Word.

There are no simple answers or easy explanations for affliction. To even try in a short blog post risks reducing it to platitudes and over-simplification.

So instead I'll quote some excellent books that I highly recommend. Ann Voskamp, Joni Eareckson-Tada and Frederick Buechner's all tell a long tale of a life lived and the long road to understanding the reasons for suffering.

The only way to learn about affliction is to learn from affliction. These books will help along your journey.

From Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:

All these years, these angers, these hardenings, this desire to control, I had thought I had to snap the hand closed to shield joy’s fragile flame from the blasts. In a storm of struggles, I had tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But palms curled into protective fists fill with darkness. I feel that sharply, even in this … and this realization in all its full emptiness: My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
. . .
Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust. 

From Joni Eareckson Tada, When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty

Gut-wrenching questions honor God. Despair directed at God is a way of encountering him, opening ourselves up to the One and only Someone who can actually do something about our plight. And whether we, like Greg, collide with the Almighty or simply bump up against him, we cannot be the same. We never are when we experience God.

From Frederick Buechner, A Crazy, Holy Grace: The Healing Power of Pain and Memory:

The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later.