‘I feel exhausted from this pain.’ ‘When will this dark season come to an end?’ ‘I’m weary of suffering.’ ‘I thought God was leading me out of this season of pain.’ As followers of Jesus, there come times in our lives when we ask these questions. So what should we do when we are tired of our suffering?
I’m not here to make little of suffering.
Looking at a few verses from 2 Corinthians, I’m going to suggest three things we need to remember when we’re suffering.
1. God Comforts Us
We all long for the comforting presence of God in times of suffering. Thankfully, Paul reassures us of God’s comforting nature in moments of affliction. As he writes, “[God] comforts us in all our affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:4).
No trial is insignificant for God. He comforts his children.
During trials as followers of Jesus Christ, through the bitter disappointments and brokenness, it’s crucial to remind ourselves that God can and does comfort us—even when it may not feel like it. Note Paul’s language. He says that God provides comfort in “all” our afflictions, demonstrating his care for every form of hardship and loss experienced by his children. No trial is insignificant for God. He comforts his children.
Thus in times of suffering we must recall the comforting presence of God. Through prayer, meditating on his word, and the comfort we find in the church community, we can cling onto God when our circumstances seem overwhelming. Furthermore, God has a purpose for us in our trials. The next two points outline two of them.
2. Suffering Prepares You to Help Others
As you are going through affliction, don’t look inward; look outward. For when you look inward you miss the outward purpose of suffering. The outward purpose of your suffering is that you become a means of grace to others. According to God’s providential design, your afflictions enable you “to comfort those in any affliction, with the comfort with which you are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).
The outward purpose of your suffering is that you become a means of grace to others.
When you’re growing tired of your trials, remember the bigger picture of suffering. God is preparing you. Maybe God is preparing you to comfort someone who has lost a loved one, because you once lost a loved one. Perhaps God is preparing you to comfort someone hurting from a broken relationship, after you experienced relational hurt. Maybe God is equipping you by your own illness to comfort someone who is ill.
3. Suffering Teaches Faith and Dependance
A few verses on from the one already quoted, Paul expresses the burden and tiredness that he and his ministry associates felt because of their affliction (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). They were “burdened beyond their strength [so] that they despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:9). Paul didn’t downplay suffering. It can wear us out: physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. Suffering can make us feel like we have received a sentence of death (2 Corinthians 1:9).
Paul didn’t downplay suffering. It can wear us out.
Exhaustion and fatigue in suffering is related to the ways in which it trains us; as suffering “makes us not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9). This is difficult to learn. Difficult to go through. But suffering trains us to become more fully dependent on God. When things are falling apart we learn to give ourselves more to the one who holds the universe together (Hebrews 1:3). As death looms we learn to entrust ourselves to the God who raises the dead. Feeling powerless points us to the omnipotent God.
When you are tired because of your suffering, remember that your comforting heavenly Father is leading you to completely trust in him.
His Grace Is Sufficient
Like Paul, I’m not here to make little of suffering. It can wear us out. But amid your tiredness, in the fatigue and overwhelm, turn to the God who comforts the afflicted. Remember that he has a purpose, both to prepare you to serve others and to promote greater dependance on him.
Turn to the God who comforts the afflicted. Remember that he has a purpose.
Finally, let us remember the reassuring and powerful truth written towards the end of this epistle. “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).
