Suffering Is Never for Nothing

by Elisabeth Elliot

no one participates in God’s joy without first tasting the afflictions of His Son.

When affliction decimates you, then you understand Elisabeth’s doctrine: The Bible’s answers are never to be separated from the God of the Bible.

“The cross is the gateway to joy.” And was there any greater suffering than on the cross?

And I’ve come to see that it’s through the deepest suffering that God has taught me the deepest lessons. And if we’ll trust Him for it, we can come through to the unshakable assurance that He’s in charge. He has a loving purpose. And He can transform something terrible into something wonderful. Suffering is never for nothing.

Suffering is a mystery that none of us is really capable of plumbing. And it’s a mystery about which I’m sure everyone at some time or other has asked why. If we try to put together the mystery of suffering with the Christian idea of a God who we know loves us, if we think about it for as much as five minutes, the notion of a loving God cannot be possibly be deduced from the evidence that we see around us, let alone from human experience.

suffering. I’m convinced that there are a good many things in this life that we really can’t do anything about, but that God wants us to do something with.

“Suffering is having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.”

The deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering. And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things that I know about God.

(Ps. 91:1–7 kjv).

There would be no intellectual satisfaction on this side of Heaven to that age-old question, why. Although I have not found intellectual satisfaction, I have found peace. The answer I say to you is not an explanation but a person, Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God.

But He was giving me one unmistakable promise: I will be with you. For I am the Lord your God. He is the one who loved me and gave Himself for me.

The question remains, is God paying attention? If so, why doesn’t He do something? I say He has, He did, He is doing something, and He will do something.

It’s only in the cross that we can begin to harmonize this seeming contradiction between suffering and love. And we will never understand suffering unless we understand the love of God.

“Joy is not the absence of suffering but the presence of God.”

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:18–19 kjv).

Suffering is an irreplaceable medium through which I learned an indispensable truth.

I look upon suffering as one of God’s ways of getting our attention. In fact, C. S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

The very question why, even if it is flung at us by one who calls himself an unbeliever or an atheist is a dead give-away that there is that sneaking suspicion in the back of every human mind that there is somebody, some reason, some thinking individual behind this.

God, through my own troubles and sufferings, has not given me explanations. But He has met me as a person, as an individual, and that’s what we need. Who of us in the worst pit that we’ve ever been in needs anything as much as we need company? Just somebody, perhaps, who will sit there in silence but just be with us. Job never denies God’s existence, never imagines that God has nothing to do with his troubles, but he has a thousand questions and so do we.

What looked like a contradiction in terms, I had to leave in God’s hands and say okay, Lord. I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. But I only had two choices. He is either God or He’s not. I am either held in the Everlasting Arms or I’m at the mercy of chance and I have to trust Him or deny Him. Is there any middle ground? I don’t think so.

If your prayers don’t get answered the way you thought they were supposed to be, what happens to your faith? The world says God doesn’t love you. The Scriptures tell me something very different. Those “blesseds” of the Beatitudes. Paul’s word, it is my happiness to suffer for You.

“The storm of pain is calming down and the Lord is painting a new and different picture of Himself.”

Perhaps some future day, Lord, Thy strong hand will lead me to the place where I must stand utterly alone. Alone, O gracious lover, but for Thee. I shall be satisfied if I can see Jesus only. I do not know Thy plan for years to come, my spirit finds in Thee its perfect home. Sufficiency. Lord, all my desire is before Thee now, lead on no matter where, no matter how. I trust in Thee.

Acceptance, I believe, is the key to peace in this business of suffering.

We’re not adrift in chaos. We’re held in the everlasting arms. And therefore, and this makes a difference, we can be at peace and we can accept. We can say yes, Lord, I’ll take it.

legend that said, “Do the next thing.” I don’t know any simpler formula for peace, for relief from stress and anxiety than that very practical, very down-to-earth word of wisdom. Do the next thing. That has gotten me through more agonies than anything else I could recommend.

Our trust is Thine eternal Word, Thy presence our security.”

“Trust Me.” Some day, even you will see that there’s sense in this. Your suffering is never for nothing.

God is saying, ”Trust Me.” Accept it now. See later.

You either believe God knows what He’s doing or you believe He doesn’t. You either believe He’s worth trusting or you say He’s not. And then, where are you? You’re at the mercy of chaos not cosmos. Chaos is the Greek word for disorder. Cosmos is the word for order. We either live in an ordered universe or we are trying to create our own reality.

Whatever is in the cup that God is offering to me, whether it be pain and sorrow and suffering and grief along with the many more joys, I’m willing to take it because I trust Him.

Two things that certainly ought to distinguish you and me and everyone who calls himself a Christian are acceptance and gratitude.

And He gives us everything that is appropriate to the job that He wants us to do. And so, understanding that, then we can say yes, Lord. I’ll take it. It would not have been my choice but knowing You love me, I will receive it and I understand that someday I’m going to understand the necessity for this thing. So I accept it. And then I can even go the step beyond and say thank You. Thank You, Lord.

And the response of a Christian should be gratitude. Thank You, Lord. I’ll take this.

And it’s all very well to make wonderful professions about being a Christian, to do your praying and your reading and your hymn singing and go to church and do this and that and the other thing. But when it comes right down to where the rubber hits the road, what kind of a difference does it make?

How to deal with suffering of any kind. Number one, I wrote, “Recognize it.” Number two, “Accept it.” Number three, “Offer it to God as a sacrifice.” And number four, “Offer yourself with it.”

Now there are a good many circuitous routes to learning to know God. But there are some shortcuts. And I’m here to suggest that gratitude is one of those shortcuts. Just start thanking God in advance because no matter what is about to happen, you already know that God is in charge. You are not adrift in a sea of chaos.

Psalm 34:1 that says, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (kjv).

It is in these very situations which are so painful—having what you don’t want, wanting with all your heart something that you don’t have—that thanksgiving can prepare the way for God to show us His Salvation.

Similarly, you and I have no idea of the things that are going on in the unseen world, except we do have an idea that they are for our perfection, for our fulfillment, for our ultimate blessing.

If I thank God for this very thing which is killing me, I can begin dimly and faintly to see it as a gift. I can realize that it is through that very thing which is so far from being the thing I would have chosen, that God wants to teach me His way of salvation. I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will say yes, Lord. I will say thank You, Lord.

And you and I should be prepared, also, to be broken bread and poured out wine for the life of the world.

It’s a good thing to talk to God before you start talking to anybody else.

Now what is God’s intention when He gives you and me something? He is giving me something in my hands with which I can turn to Him and offer it back to Him with thanksgiving.

She spoke about the little boy bringing his lunch to Jesus. And she said, “If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it may be because pieces will feed a multitude when a loaf would satisfy only a little boy.”

But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure.

I give Him my deaths and He gives me His life. My sorrows, He gives me joy. My losses, He gives me His gains. This is the great principle of the cross.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Paul was able to sing in prison. And he wrote those prison epistles which are filled with joy. The book of Philippians is called the epistle of joy. And he wrote these stunning words in the first chapter of Philippians, verse 29, words which to me are loaded. He said, “For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well” (nrsv). You have been given a gift of suffering.

And when I suffer, He suffers. Christ suffered on the cross. He bore all my sins, all my griefs and all my sorrows. And yet there is a full tale yet to be fulfilled. I don’t understand it. I simply affirm it. I accept it.