Someone asked me this week: "Can you prove in Scripture that suffering is essential?" I really took that question to heart and wrote this in response.
I think I’ve come to accept, through many trials and tribulations, that suffering is, if not essential, at least a significant participant in this spiritual journey we call life.
I don’t claim to be correct and remain open to being convinced that suffering isn’t essential—after all, that would make life quite a bit easier. However, the central symbol of our tradition is the cross, a profound representation of suffering, so we must ask ourselves why this theme is so prominent. There is something in the Christian journey that seems to suggest suffering is not just a byproduct but a key element in our transformation.
Whether it is Paul's understanding of weakness as a gateway to divine strength, or Christ’s journey to the cross, we are repeatedly drawn back to the idea that suffering has a deeper purpose. The cross symbolizes more than just pain—it speaks to the redemptive power of love that works through suffering, transforming it into something of eternal value.
It seems that God has ordained suffering and confirmed this through His own suffering in the flesh for our sake. The cross appears to be a powerful statement that God is neither denying nor avoiding suffering. Instead, God enters into it, standing in solidarity with the human race and all of creation, which is groaning under the weight of brokenness. Through His suffering, God affirms a deep connection with our pain, showing us that He is present with us in it, not distant from it.
Richard Rohr wrote: "The enfleshment and suffering of Jesus is saying that God is not apart from the trials of humanity. God is not aloof. God is not a mere spectator. God is participating with us. God is not merely tolerating human suffering. Or healing suffering. God is participating with us in it. That is what gives believers both meaning and hope.
Paul described it like this: 'It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that still has to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the church'"(Col. 1: 24).
We should never forget that God may have ordained suffering because it is the highest expression of love. Without the icon of the cross that stands for someone loving others until the very end, we might have never seen what total sacrificial other-centeredness looks like.
Jesus called us to take up our cross daily and gave us a new commandment: "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." (Joh 15:12-13)
I believe that we are predestined—not for earthly blessings, the promise of heaven, or even for the purpose of building churches and running campaigns—but to fulfill the unique purposes of God in each of our lives. God's design for every individual is distinct, and this is precisely why Paul emphasized to the Greeks the divine intentionality behind each person’s life, even down to their dwelling place and the precise moment of their appearance on this earth. As Paul said in Acts 17:24-28:
"God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings."
Paul also understood this predestined purpose personally, as he wrote to the Ephesians:
"In Him also we (the Apostles) have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory." (Eph 1:11-12) ( )my addition.
For this reason Paul could "rejoice in our suffering", for he understood all suffering in the context of God's purpose and not in the context of personal comfort.
When we face suffering, the relief and comfort we seek come through understanding God's greater purposes. It is in this deeper understanding that we find joy, the kind of joy that strengthens us to willingly embrace our own crosses.
We are encouraged to "look unto Jesus" when we suffer, as He is our ultimate example of endurance through suffering for a higher purpose. As it says in Hebrews 12:2-4:
"Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin."
In following Christ’s example, we find that suffering is not meaningless but is part of a divine process that shapes us and leads us closer to fulfilling God's unique purpose in our lives. Understanding this deeper meaning helps us to endure, just as Christ endured for the joy set before Him.
I have come to learn that uderstanding God's unique purpose for my life helps me find hope even in the midst of suffering. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:1-5:
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."
There is one hope that never disappoints—the assurance of God's unbreakable love. As Paul so powerfully expressed in Romans 8:35-39:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: 'For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
This is the hope that sustains us, a hope rooted in the certainty that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, no matter the trials we face.
Paul had a deep understanding of the benefits of suffering, so much so that he was willing to give up everything he had, to share in the sufferings of Christ. His desire wasn't merely to endure hardship for its own sake but to enter fully into the life and resurrection of Christ. He knew that the only true way to know Christ was to participate in His suffering, to lay down his life in the same spirit of love that Christ showed for His friends.
Paul's words in Philippians 3:10-11 capture this beautifully:
"I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience His resurrection power, be a partner in His suffering, and go all the way with Him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it."
For Paul, this was not just a philosophy but a way of life—suffering became a path to deep communion with Christ, to truly knowing Him, and to sharing in His resurrection.
The author of Hebrews highlights that even Jesus, as the Son of God, had to learn obedience through His suffering. By being perfected through it, He became the path to the Father for all who would follow Him and embrace His command to lay down their lives for others. As Hebrews 5:7-9 says:
"Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him."
Paul also grasped the transformative power of suffering. He saw it as the sharp tool needed to pierce the ego, allowing the hidden life of Christ to shine through. In his view, the entire cosmos was created for this—to physically reveal the hidden glory of God through His children, and suffering plays a vital role in this revelation.
Paul's reflection in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 illustrates this profound truth:
"We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that the extraordinary overflow of power will be seen as God’s, not ours. Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out. We continually share in the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the resurrection life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you."
This passage conveys how suffering breaks through human frailty to reveal the divine, allowing Christ's life to flow through us and impact the world around us.
Paul experienced the transformative power of suffering in his personal life. He discovered that suffering keeps us humble and weak, and in that weakness, God's power can flow through us. As he explains:
"And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
This understanding of God's purpose in suffering led Paul to find joy in his trials rather than becoming discouraged. As he writes:
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
I have come to realize that suffering plays a far more significant role in our spiritual growth and the fulfillment of God's purposes than we often acknowledge in our tradition.
Like Paul, we may discover that these truths can bring us profound peace in the midst of suffering and create a foundation for a deeper surrender.
This kind of surrender has the potential to transform lives—just as paraplegics can become Olympic athletes when they embrace their wheelchairs as their new legs, rising above their limitations.
In doing so, they reveal the hidden facets of a Love that longs to be seen, a Love that transcends suffering and shines through even the darkest moments.
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