23. Suffering can be helpful in developing self-awareness.

(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.)

WHAT BENEFITS HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED THROUGH SUFFERING?

WHAT IS YOUR TYPICAL RESPONSE TO SUFFERING: AVOID IT, FIX IT, ENDURE IT, LEARN FROM IT, EMBRACE IT AS AN OPPORTUNITY, ETC.?

DO YOU THINK THAT IT IS GOD WHO BRINGS SUFFERING TO US, OR IS IT THE ENEMY, DO WE BRING IT ON OURSELVES, OR DOES IT “JUST HAPPEN”?

We often live in a haze. We see our physical self in the mirror, but we struggle to find mirrors for our interior lives. There are resources for helping us come to know ourselves better: the Spirit, a safe and loving community, and disciplines of awareness. But an often-overlooked resource is suffering. Though it may seem illogical, it is true.

Often our outward lives are a busy and hurried whirlwind of activity. In this hurried state, we live as though we know what we need to know but our outward obsessions keep us from seeing and knowing our inner lives. Suffering has a way of slowing us down, causing us to wonder about and question what we have been pursuing, and helping us take a second look at ourselves. Suffering may be what is needed to move us to seek help from another, or even better, it may open the door for the Spirit to begin to speak to us.

It is not too much of an overstatement to say that without some suffering, we will never become aware of the deeper parts of our lives. Suffering almost always involves the loss of something material: loss of income, health, status, relationships, pleasure, or control. As our material reality fails to meet our hopes or expectations, it can cause us to reconsider what it important to us.

Eventually, if we allow it, we can discover the deeper desires that lay beneath our material pursuits, the inner desires that are not physical: joy, peace, contentment, rest, and love. Ironically, it is suffering that helps us move in the direction that our deeper longings are calling us. And as we become aware of these deep longings, we are better prepared to make choices that make those longings available to us.

Suffering is not necessarily good, but it can lead to good, to greater self-awareness, and to wholeness. As the Apostle Paul said,  And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. (Romans 8:28, NIV)