"Forgive me for all the times I needed to suffer and I ran from it, I numbed it.” The prayer caught me off guard. I looked up. Aspens bent in the wind outside the window. A small group of pastors gathered in the small community center in the tiny town of Summerhaven, located near the summit of Mount Lemmon, 5,000 feet above Tucson.
Who hasn’t avoided suffering? I’ve avoided suffering in countless ways: I’ve dodged difficult conversations, evaded serving, neglected the spiritual disciplines of fasting and silence, overspent our budget, and skipped leg day. But how often have I prayed for forgiveness for shirking suffering?
The prayer turned over in my head all day. And then it became my prayer. "Forgive me for all the times I needed to suffer, and I ran from it.”
Have you ever sinned by eluding suffering?
In Hebrews 12, the author echoes Proverbs 3 and urges us to view discipline not as punishment, but as an act of God’s love:
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Heb. 12:5-11)
The argument is this: any good parent knows that they discipline their children because they love their children. We do not allow our kids to hit or bite their friends, run across the street, only eat dessert, have as much screen time as they want, and stay up as late as they want because we hate them, but because we love them.
The reason I don’t discipline other parents’ children is because I am not responsible for them, not because I love them more than my kids.
Moreover, loving discipline yields results. Any parent can attest to the good fruit of discipline in their children’s lives.
Is suffering necessarily discipline, though? Paul argues that is the case. Paul says that more than anything, he wants to know Jesus. What is the most intimate way Paul can think of knowing Jesus? Knowing him in his suffering. To experience Christ’s resurrection is to experience his suffering. Paul says, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10). In Colossians, Paul says that part of his ministry is completing the suffering of Jesus for his people. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col. 1:24).
Paul echoes this thought in his introduction to his letter to the church at Philippi. He says, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Phil. 1:29). Do we believe God calls us into his sufferings? Do we think that part of God’s mercy to us is that he grants us the honor of suffering “for his sake”? That’s going to take years more of work on my heart to receive.
"Forgive me for all the times I needed to be suffering, and I ran from it.”
May Christ’s discipline be a joy we run to, a gift we receive with gratitude.
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Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash