What to Do When Suffering Doesn’t End

Anyone can suffer for a little while and maintain their grip on their faith. For example, if you knew all you had to do was fast from food for a week and then after 7 days you would have a feast, it would be hard, but you could do it. After all, many people frequently fast for longer. But what if you found yourself in a season of starvation with no end in sight? How do you keep your cool, keep living out your faith, and keep making good choices when you feel like you are starving to death?

When you're stuck in a season of suffering that outwore its welcome years ago, it can feel as devastating to your mind, body, and spirit as being in a famine.

So how do we navigate the waters of fear, lack, and pain when we are already burnt out on all of these?

I could write, “keep your eyes fixed on God and he will sustain you,” and while this is absolutely true, if someone said this to me right now in my own long season of lack, I would probably feel like my pain was belittled and that I have not been understood or seen. In fact I might even have a hard time not showing resentment on my face and rolling my eyes.

I know that the only way to get through stormy seasons where the waves of fear crashing down on me feel life-threatening is to keep obeying Christ: keep my reverence and submission to his ways first.

But I have been doing that for years now! I have been faithful and yet here I am feeling the pain of long suffering yet again. My mind reels, “Why me, God? Why do you let me suffer more than I see others suffer? Am I just really stupid?”

I literally prayed this, and the Holy Spirit reminded me, “You can’t lead others where you haven’t been and I want you to bring the wounded out of their suffering and into an intimate relationship with Me.This is what I purposed for you.”

The sinful part of me wants to mutter a sarcastic, “great” under my breath. Why couldn’t I have been called to lead people into wealth or peace, or something pleasant? I just don’t want to suffer any more.

I used to suffer because every time I became afraid, I let my fear sit in the drivers’ seat and I would make terrible choices. Now, I suffer because God is equipping me to faithfully love and lead the wounded and hurting into a place of strength and unshakable spiritual and mental wellness.

You might be thinking, “What’s this got to do with me? I came here for encouragement.”  I want you to know that I believe I am as regular as they get. The calling God has whispered to my weary heart isn’t something meant just for me. It’s meant for you too.

There is an expression that I always hated when I was a high school teacher. It’s “Those who can’t do, teach.” But actually, that’s wrong. Especially in God’s kingdom. He makes us lead by example and the only ones who can teach are the ones with the testimony.

I don’t know when your famine, storm, or suffering will end. I can’t predict when the Lord will bring us into a season of rest, or how long that season of rest will be before the next stormy season hits our lives. What I do know is that God gives us the grace to endure. When we continue to let him direct our steps, when we cling to him in the darkest valley of evil, he will protect and guide us.

This won’t last forever. But for today, here are some reminders to hold on to.

1. God sees and remembers our suffering.

• “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” (Psalm 56:8)

God the Father isn’t overlooking your pain. He is so attentive to you he holds onto your tears. I can’t explain why this season of suffering is happening to you, but I do know that Jesus understands your pain and he has promised to always be with you.

• “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

2. Suffering can feel crushing, but it is not the end.

• “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9)

Paul doesn’t deny the blows of life, but he points out that because of Christ, suffering will never have the final word. I’m reminded of the moment right before I birthed my babies, when the pain was so great and my body utterly exhausted and I screamed through my suffering, “I can’t do this any more!” But just like a woman giving birth to the greatest blessing, you can do this because you have to. This pain is going to birth something so beautiful and necessary and once you are on the other side, holding onto your blessing, the misery of the birthing process will fade away from your mind.

3. God uses long suffering to shape character and plant seeds of hope.

• “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts…” (Romans 5:3–5)

Even when everything looks broken, God is at work forming something eternal inside of us both for us and for others. Your life might look like a decimated pile of ash that was once something beautiful that you spent so much of yourself building, and it's easy to lose hope and feel like ashes is all you will ever have in life.

I want to remind you, that even here in the rubble of your life, Jesus is with you, at work in your life, and is creating beauty from these very ashes.

4. God will restore what has been lost.

• “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…” (Joel 2:25)
  This was spoken to Israel after devastation, but it reveals God’s heart: He is able to redeem even the years that feel wasted.
• “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” (1 Peter 5:10)

Seasons of suffering have their time in our life, but we also are promised seasons of peace. Time seems to move so slowly when we are going through the pain of a refining season, but I promise you this is not all the Father has planned for you. He loves you.

5. Jesus enters into our suffering with us.

• “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…” (Isaiah 53:3)

Jesus doesn’t stand far off when we are suffering. He is familiar with grief and walks with us in it. He knows how to lead us through it because he has walked through it before himself.

• “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

6. There is an eternal perspective.

• “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Even if suffering lasts all our earthly days, it is “momentary” compared to eternity, and it is not wasted. It is preparing us for something glorious. Keep your eyes fixed on the prize of Heaven, even while you are sitting in the ashes of despair over all that you have lost or failed to gain here on this side of eternity.

I know that long seasons of suffering, or even short seasons where every aspect of your life has been obliterated and feels beyond recognition is miserable. It’s easy to hear the lie, “See, look around, God doesn’t love you.” But here is my final reminder to myself and to you, suffering is not proof of an absent God or an unloving Father. Suffering is the carbon-product of your soul under pressure that God allows in order to form diamonds in your character and spirit.

You are being made strong, purified and beautiful like a diamond. Don’t lose hope. You will see the goodness of God in your life again.

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