What we would throw away
One of the best books on suffering that I have come across is Spurgeon’s Sorrows. My aunt sent me a copy to aide in this season of darkness. It is a short but powerful exposition of CH Spurgeon’s teaching and thought on suffering. I did not realize how much struggle he experienced in life. He’s often held up on a pedestal as the prince of preachers but he genuinely had a pastoral spirit and was marked by sympathy, sadness, and practicality. He had marked physical pain and emotional distress that enabled him to understand suffering from a Christian viewpoint.
At the end of the book the author outlines a few of the benefits of suffering. The one that stuck out to me most on this read through:
“we often mix up what Jesus treasures with what Jesus willingly gets rid of.”
So much of the pain of my present darkness is that I have nothing to point to at this point of material blessing or benefit. I am entirely out of control of my circumstances, due to no fault of mine.
That famous poem Invictus, “I thank whatever gods maybe for my unconquerable soul, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” my life is the complete opposite of that right now. I cannot stoically maneuver my way out of this, I have to simply lay down and suffer unjustly. And from the perspective of the apostles that is an incredible blessing. Because their world was upended by watching the end times inaugurated by the resurrection of the Son of God. And when their homes were plundered and their lives were taken from them they gloried in what the world deemed shameful, because the same thing had happened to their Lord and friend Jesus. And he promised them the same would happen, they would be hated and lynched because of Him. And so when it happened they took it as glory not shame.
It is so hard to have this perspective, to look at the darkness and say this is true honor, this failure, this lack of becoming great in the eyes of the world is the very thing that God values so much. The movie Father Stu with Mark Walberg really portrays it so beautifully. The arrows and darts of this world that literally take away our ability to participate in the structures of success in this world, losing the ability to walk or to talk, failing at business, failing at teaching, failing at even being a good husband because you cannot provide despite how hard you may want to. The standards of worldly success simply don’t apply to those in God’s kingdom.
If they did, how could the poor have anything to offer their Savior? They have nothing to give from our perspective, because they have nothing, and yet the orphan, the widow and the lost, these are the ones the prophets and apostles tell us are closest to God’s heart. By having nothing except their sorrows they have more than the richest King in this world, because they have the King who spat upon worldly riches, the King who chose to be spat upon rules in their hearts. They have eternity in their hearts instead of success.
I have had success in my heart my whole life and it has always been denied me. I have always failed at everything I have tried to accomplish. Sometimes it was my fault, sometimes it wasn’t, but regardless I can’t point to a wall of achievements only a mountain of shame. The ones I understand aren’t the ones that hurt the most, it’s the ones I don’t understand. Again to quote CS Lewis:
“I felt ashamed."
"But of what? Psyche, they hadn't stripped you naked or anything?"
"No, no, Maia. Ashamed of looking like a mortal -- of being a mortal."
"But how could you help that?"
"Don't you think the things people are most ashamed of are things they can't help?”
-Till We Have Faces
To suffer in this world is a sign of shame. We don’t honor the QBs who threw an interception late in the game, despite showing up day in and day out, putting in the work only to come up short. Nobody knows who Warren Moon is, but everybody knows who Tom Brady is. Almost no one remembers Marv Levy (the only coach to lose four superbowls in a row) but Bill Belichick will be remembered as long as the game is played. That’s how this world works.
I’ll never forget the BCS national championship game from 2010. I’m convinced to this day had Colt McCoy been healthy Texas would’ve beaten Alabama. But on the Longhorns first possession he was injured and his college football career ended, sidelined, watching his team lose. After the game when interviewed, at first he was speechless, I think he probably had to fight back tears. Then after he found the words that had escaped him, he famously said:
“I always give God the glory, I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life.”
Remembering when Vince Young single handedly beat UCS a few years earlier in the national championship is a much more enjoyable memory, but Colt’s freak accident that led to a devastating loss is much more meaningful.
It is hard to comprehend but sufferings are simply more valuable than successes to God. He can’t be won over or impressed with silver or gold, he sees those things not only as garbage but as dangerous. And what we see as dangerous he sees as infinitely worthy. What we don’t value He values, what we would throw away He saves.