SUFFERING

Suffering


Three Approaches


To live is to suffer, and to suffer is to pray. It is almost a reflex action when we're facing one of life's storms. My wife announces that she's going into the doctor the next day to have him look at what she thinks is a lump on her breast. My first thought is "O God, no!"

But aside from the sudden and desperate cry, how should we pray? What exactly should we pray for? For immediate delivery? For patience to bear the trial? Or, should we complain about the injustice of it all?

If suffering is one of life's mysteries, how exactly to respond to it more specifically, how exactly to pray through it can also be a puzzle.

Prayer from the Belly of a (Big) Fish

The Bible has its share of prayers that were said in the midst of suffering, but three prayers stand out. Every serious prayer should know the prayers and the context in which they were said, for they have a lot to teach us. We begin with a prayer found in the well-known parable of Jonah.


Though some take the story as history, I do not. But whether history or parable, the story is divinely inspired to teach us about many things, including prayer.


The plot is well known: Jonah is asked by God to go to the city of Ninevah and preach God's coming judgment. Jonah wants none of it and boards the first ship heading in the opposite direction, thinking he can escape God.

Soon a storm arises, and even the seasoned sailors fear for their lives. They learn of Jonah's story and figure out that his disobedience to God has caused the storm. Jonah volunteers to be thrown overboard to save the ship, and after trying to manage the ship a bit longer, the crew finally obliges. This part of the story concludes, "Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights" (Jonah 1:17).

We do not need vivid imaginations to figure out that life in the belly of a big fish is no pleasure cruise. Any consciousness one might experience would be completely dominated by despair: It's only a matter of minutes before death. Time to get the soul in order, if nothing else.

Jonah, however, takes a surprising approach. We best hear his "last" prayer in his own words, in full:

"I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the world of the dead, and Lord, you heard me! You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves. Then I said, 'O Lord you have driven me from your presence. How will I ever again see your holy temple?'

"I sank beneath the waves, and death was very near. The waters closed in around me, and seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was locked out of life and imprisoned in the land of the dead. But you, O Lord my God, have snatched me from the yawning jaws of death!

"When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy temple. Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God's mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord" (Jonah 2:29).


Faith at the Bottom

The prayer shows signs of having been composed in a completely different setting than in the belly of a big fish. Though it makes use of imagery of the sea, it was more likely written on dry land and to be said in the Jerusalem Temple. But it was a nice literary move to place it in the mouth of Jonah at this point in the story. It was done to make a number of points, one of which is about prayer.


We're not completely aware of the full context of this prayer until we read the first sentence that follows the prayer: "Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit up Jonah on the beach, and it did" (Jonah 2:10).

What's remarkable about the prayer is this: Jonah thanks God, praising him for his deliverance before it happens.

While in the belly of the fish, Jonah prays, "I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the world of the dead, and Lord, you heard me!"

While sinking deeper and deeper into the ocean depths, Jonah cries out, "I was locked out of life and imprisoned in the land of the dead. But you, O Lord my God, have snatched me from the yawning jaws of death!"


When only seconds of life could possibly remain, Jonah says, "But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord."

Jonah shows a type of faith in the midst of suffering that is rare but real. This may be a parable, but the reaction to suffering is genuine. Some people, when they see death staring at them in the face, simply smile and say, "Praise the Lord." They are confident that God will rescue them and if not, what does it matter? They'll be with the Lord in a few minutes anyway.


This remarkable sort of faith doesn't seem to be given to everyone. It is not something to aspire to it is a gift. If you are suddenly given such hope in the midst of suffering, don't necessarily chalk it up as a "psychological defense mechanism" or "denial." It could very well be a gift of the Holy Spirit, and you should pray just as your soul soars.

Tragic Job

Though we might be tempted to think that this is the right way to pray, it apparently is not. The Bible records other instances of saintly people praying in utterly different ways. At the other end of the spectrum from Jonah stands the tragic figure of Job. Again, we're dealing with a parable, but this is one of the most profound that has ever been told.

The plot line unfolds pretty quickly in the first two chapters. Job is described as a "blameless man, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil" (Job 1:1). Furthermore, Job was a pious man who never neglected his religious duties.

Job was also a blessed man: He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned thousands of sheep and camels, and hundreds of oxen and donkeys, and he employed many servants. "He was, in fact," the story says, "the richest man in the entire area" (Job 1:3).

At this point, Satan, God's great adversary, asked permission to test Job. Satan believed that Job was devout and righteous simply because he had been so richly blessed. "Take away everything he has," Satan concluded, "and he will surely curse you to your face" (Job 1:11).

God granted the permission, and the game was on. In short order, Job lost his herds to marauding bands and to fire; his home collapsed in a storm that killed all of his children, who were inside at the time. Finally, he was struck down with a case of boils that completely covered his body. The writer sadly concludes, "Then Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes" (Job 2:8).

At the end of this string of tragedy, his wife came up to him and told him, "Curse God and die" (Job 2:9).

But Job replied, "You talk like a godless woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?" (Job 2:10)

The writer notes, "So in all this, Job said nothing wrong" (Job 2:10).

God's Critic

Job may not have cursed God, and he may not have said anything wrong, but that didn't keep him from speaking his mind honestly. After sitting with three friends for seven days in silence, he finally blurted out:


''Cursed be the day of my birth, and cursed be the night when I was conceived. Let that day be turned to darkness. Let it be lost even to God on high, and let it be shrouded in darkness. . . . Curse it for its failure to shut my mother's womb, for letting me be born to all this trouble.

"Why didn't I die at birth as I came from the womb? Why did my mother let me live? Why did she nurse me at her breasts? For if I had died at birth, I would be at peace now, asleep and at rest" (Job 3:3, 4, 1113).

He may not curse God, but Job does complain:

"If my sadness could be weighed and my troubles be put on the scales, they would be heavier than all the sands of the sea. . . . For the Almighty has struck me down with his arrows. He has sent his poisoned arrows deep within my spirit. All God's terrors are arrayed against me. Don't I have a right to complain?" (Job 6:25)

And the more Job thinks about it, the more anguished become his prayers:

"I cannot keep from speaking. I must express my anguish. I must complain in my bitterness. Am I a sea monster that you place a guard on me?

"What are mere mortals, that you should make so much of us? For you examine us every morning and test us every moment. Why won't you leave me alone even for a moment? Have I sinned? What have I done to you, O watcher of all humanity? Why have you made me your target? Am I a burden to you?" (7:11, 1720)

Here we have not only some of the most moving poetry ever written, but an eloquent example of prayer in the midst of suffering. It is difficult to believe that God would honor this sort of thing, but at the end of the story of Job, God does exactly that.


God came in a whirlwind and, yes, chastised Job for becoming "God's critic." Job, in turn, humbly submitted himself to God's power and wisdom: "I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me. . . . I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance" (Job 42:2, 5).

In the end, though, God rewarded Job by returning his lost fortunes, giving him twice as much as before. Job may have spoken ignorantly and arrogantly when he questioned God and complained against him, but it was not an unforgivable sin. The unforgivable sin is to reject God in such circumstances, to harden our hearts and have nothing to do with him again. That is unforgivable because we put ourselves in a stance toward God that will not allow him to forgive, let alone allow ourselves to repent.

Job was angry, and for good reason. But he never forsook God. He simply wanted to have an argument with him. He lost the argument, yes, but he did not lose his God.

Looking for a Way Out

A third approach to prayer in suffering is modeled by Jesus, and it looks at suffering a completely different way probably the way most of us pray in painful circumstances.

Jesus had known his fate for weeks, if not months, and it came crashing down on him the night before he was to die. Jesus had just finished eating his last meal with his disciples, his friends. Weighed down with grief, he decided to go off with his closest friends and pray. Gospel writer Mark is sparse with the words he uses to describe the scene, but the effect is potent:

And they came to an olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, "Sit here while I go and pray." He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he began to be filled with horror and deep distress. He told them, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me."

He went on a little farther and fell face down on the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine" (Mark 14:3236).


The prayer has two dimensions. The first is an honest expression of what Jesus feels he wants: He wants to live. He tells God so, and he pleads that he might be spared the cruel death of being nailed to a cross.

We don't know how long Jesus prayed this way, for Mark has greatly shortened the scene. It may have been an hour; it may have been all night. He may have been praying this prayer every night for months. But this night it is said with such anguish, that we sense the pain even 2,000 years removed.

This is the prayer most of us pray when facing pain and distress. We don't want our loved ones to have cancer.


We want to be spared bankruptcy. We don't want to live with unrelenting back pain for decades.

Sometimes, as we noted in early chapters, God honors the request. The cancer is healed, the business comes in, the vertebrae is restored. And like Jonah, we exult in God's goodness though after the fact.

And sometimes, for reasons known only to God alone, we hear silence in return. This is what Jesus heard, so much silence over the next few hours that as he hung on the cross, he shouted, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Yet Jesus had the courage to go through the mockery of a trial and the brutality of a whipping and the cruelty of crucifixion because of something he said that night: "Yet I want your will, not mine" (Mark 14:36).

The very words that sound as if we're giving up are, in fact, the most powerful words we can utter in our despair. For to say, "Thy will be done" is to put ourselves completely into the hands of God, whose love, strength, and grace can sustain us through any storm or as we hang upon the cruelest of crosses.


The Key to Prayer in Suffering

How should we pray in suffering? I have no idea. I do know there is hardly a wrong way. The point is to do whatever needs to be done to stay connected with God whether that means trusting God to save, like Jonah, or fighting for understanding, like Job, or submitting to God's will, like Jesus.

So what is the key?

Just do it.