Why not me?

Bending over to pick up a shampoo bottle, the shock got me somewhere between L1 and L5: instant electric jolt of painful lower back attack, then cramps, then slowly rising to steady myself, like a arthritic seventy-five year old man lifting an eighty pound rucksack, mouthing “ow ow ow ow….” Unexpected pain, twenty-four hours of soreness, alleviated by ice packs, powerful drugs and no unnecessary movement. I admit it: I enjoyed having others run my errands and bring me drinks, but I did not enjoy the insufferable stiffness. I longed to play basketball, run without pain, easily rise out of a chair. An episode that reminds: suffering is part of life. It is not a question of “if” but a matter of “when.” Paul wrote the letter to the Christians in Rome and included a curious expression in verse 3: “…we rejoice in our sufferings.” I think I have glossed over that expression hundreds of times in my life, without it ever causing a reaction. Until yesterday.

I want to argue with Paul. “Paul, speak for yourself, but as for me, I don’t rejoice in my sufferings. I fight my sufferings, resist them, deny them. I consider them alien invaders to my safe middle-class existence. Isn’t life supposed to be safer, healthier and happier?” 1960’s schoolteachers taught us, and we all believed, that SCIENCE was making everything better: longer life, less disease, a pill for every ache and pain, no bad breath or b.o. Now we see the lie of a scientific utopia unmasked. Life expectancy is longer in some rich nations but people still suffer. Illness still advances. We still die painful deaths every day. We fight our sufferings and rage at deity by saying, “Why me? Why am I suffering? Why did you give this illness to me?” Paul’s approach is curious and counterintuitive. “REJOICE IN YOUR SUFFERINGS.” As if to say, “Don’t ask ‘Why me?' Ask ‘Why not me?’” Expect to suffer and be surprised when you don’t.

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…”

This is Paul’s theology of suffering and pain, and it is fast becoming my theology. Pastor Kelly Williams spoke about this at length yesterday with insightful reminders from Romans 5: “Suffering is not the obstacle or the enemy of happiness. It is not the thing preventing happiness….Suffering is the vehicle God uses to get me to hope. Once I feel hope, I feel happiness.” But it all begins with suffering. There is spiritual algebra at work:

Suffering =>Endurance=>Character=>Hope

Paul is not like the guy singing, “Don’t worry…be happy” as if to ignore suffering in a “Pollyannaish” way. Neither is he the beaten masochistic who says “thank you sir, may I have another?” No, to Paul, suffering is the rock in the shoe that gets us walking in a different way. Suffering produces godly character which leads to hope. This hope does not let us down, because this hope comes packaged with God’s love poured to overflowing in our hearts through the Holy Spirit! ©2010 Ray Woolridge