One of the most shocking parts about the Bible, if you aren’t familiar with it, is its unflinching honesty. Great men and women of the Bible aren’t portrayed as towering heroes; we get to see their flaws and their doubts. The focus is rarely their strength and courage, but on God’s grace.
Scripture is also unflinching when describing trials. Entire books of the Bible are written on the subject. As Ray Ortlund Jr. notes, Job is in the Bible not because it’s such an unusual story, but because his story seems so familiar to us. Over 40% of the Psalms are lament. Lamentations and Habakuk grapple with sorrow. The stories of Scripture confront us with the brutal reality of living in a broken world. Just read the end of Hebrews 11.
In case you think the suffering will be manageable, meditate on Paul’s testimony in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.” Even a great apostle felt that God gave him more than he could handle. Even Paul despaired of life itself.
Scripture repeatedly teaches us to expect suffering (Genesis 3:16-19; John 16:33; Philippians 1:29). Ecclesiastes catalogs the absurdities and trials of life and argues, among other things, that we can’t do much about it, so try to find some joy amidst the suffering, and look to God. By its stories, examples, and explicit teaching, Scripture teaches us to expect trails.
You will suffer, and it will be hard. While Scripture offers rich theology, it doesn’t offer easy answers when it comes to our suffering.
It offers something greater: God, and a faith that doesn’t grow weaker in suffering, but grows stronger through it.
Job doesn’t end with answers, but it ends with a glorious vision of God, which is exactly what we need when we suffer. We need a vision of God who is unlike us, who is good, holy, sovereign, powerful, and who cares for us. We need, as Kevin DeYoung writes, “a God big enough for all our faith, hope, and love.” The Bible doesn’t present us with easy answers that explain away our suffering; it presents us with a glorious view of God that shows us how little we know about anything, including our suffering. And it offers us his presence and help too.
But we don’t just get a glorious vision of God; we get an antifragile faith too. To be antifragile is to become stronger when exposed to stressors, uncertainty, and risk. God has designed the faith to be grow stronger under trail. Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-4). Suffering teaches us to rely on God, not ourselves (2 Corinthians 1:9). It prepares us for an eternal weight of glory that’s beyond comprehension (2 Corinthians 4:17). It helps us to know Jesus better, including both his sufferings and his resurrection (Philippians 3:10).
God’s given us a faith that’s built for trials. That’s why people like Paul can go through every conceivable trial — beatings, misunderstandings, betrayal by friends, the ongoing prospect of death — and grow in his hope.
Never minimize the amount of suffering that we’ll go through, and how hard it will be. And don’t go looking for easy answers. Look for something greater: God. And know that God has given us a faith that doesn’t grow weaker under suffering but actually grows stronger through it.