Fellowship of Sufferers

"do you think you'll be suffering at the next place you go?", said the young man sitting at my table, as he savored and devoured real Mexican food.
Arrian Zane swore he would be the first person to visit us in Mexico, which he did, just one month after we had arrived. Sure, his question made me laugh, but, was he really making a joke? I had to agree with him, this was not suffering, and in some strange way, I felt like I was letting him down. It was kind of disappointing that life on the mission field could be so yummy. An uneasy doubt popped into my head, "maybe I wasn't even a legitimate missionary, if I wasn't suffering."

For most of the time, we can emphatically say, with all assurance, "I don't want to suffer"! Sometimes, though, a little suffering seems exciting, makes us feel qualified, as if we have chosen a more honorable way, but that is a very little, mind you. Our prayer would mostly be "give us this day, Lord, suffering within reasonable limits, suffering that suits our plans, never let us suffer without seeing a greater purpose in it all, or if possible, never let us suffer."

When we try to dictate to the Lord the terms of our suffering, we are not really learning to suffer in the Spirit. Beware of thinking that God is going to get on board with your choices and check you off the list of suffering recipients. Besides, even if we had the choice, I don't believe we would ever choose God's way to begin with. Consider this. Has anyone ever said, after the fact, that they would have chosen God's path of suffering if they had known about it beforehand? Think about it in your own life. Would you have made that choice?
Suffering in the Spirit requires that you surrender the right to choose how you will suffer, and agree to the Lord's terms of suffering, even if it means you will never know the purpose behind it. Suffering is not optional, not a "take it or leave it", nor a "pick and choose" choice. I repeat, it is not optional, still not optional, no matter how much your flesh insists that it is.

"For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake." (philippians1:29) Did you know you were getting the package deal?

C.S. Lewis wrote while struggling with his wife's death,  “We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.” In his book "Simply Jesus", Joseph Stowell says "The question is not are you willing to suffer? We have little choice about that. The real question is, are you willing to meet Jesus there - right in the midst of your pain?"

The worst part of suffering is that it hurts. When I was going through depression, what I wanted more than anything was for the pain to stop; it became my obsessive goal, in what seemed to be a never ending time of suffering. I wish I could tell you that one of the benefits of surrender is freedom from pain, but alas, I cannot. To walk in the Spirit is to meet Christ in real, actual pain. Stay with Him there, Stowell encourages us, "and as you feel His pain in yours, thank Him that He loved you enough to suffer like this for you." There is a deeper knowing, a deeper intimacy, in experiencing pain with Christ.

It doesn't make me like pain more, and when my flesh offers me ways to numb that pain, I jump at the chance. In the flesh, I have a wide array of numbing agents like depression, food, drugs, alcohol, sex, even cutting, but I won't share Christ's sufferings in anything the flesh offers. And, to my horror, in the flesh I find myself wanting those around me to feel pain too. If I have to suffer, then someone else is going down with me, preferably the one "I see" as the cause of my pain. Shockingly selfish, I know, but rings true in us all. Isn't that why "if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?"

But to the Philippians, Paul said that he wanted to know Christ, the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. (3:10). There is no doubt that God intends for us to suffer, but suffering is also a place, a place of fellowship with His Son, a place to die, a place of His choosing.