The Sacred Place of Suffering

Week 15, Wednesday

Kathy Ferguson Litton

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9

Certainly suffering is a sacred place, one designed as a platform or stage for the demonstration of our confidence in God in unwanted circumstances. God calls to us to trust Him. And yet He expresses a level of trust in us.

How does God demonstrate trust in us? He entrusts us with the experience He has thrust into our lives. More simply put, He picks us for it. He calls us to be the steward of the experience suffering allows in our lives. Sometimes those assignments are incredibly awful.

Why would God entrust us with suffering? There is only one explanation—His grace. Without it human suffering would be a capricious act.

In the Christian culture it is far too easy to grow dull to the depth and reality of biblical terms. We throw them out casually but somehow our minds fail to fully realize their powerful, real, daily implications. In a sermon series some years ago my late husband crafted this definition of grace: “The disposition, pursuit, and provision of God toward fallen men, whereby He freely offers Himself as a sufficient resource for their every need.” God, by His grace, empowers us to do things we would not otherwise have the strength to do on our own. “Saved by grace” is the entry point of relationship with God. Yet God’s grace does not end there. His grace to be the resource for every need is His perpetual disposition to us. This is the only reason God entrusts us with suffering, because He will give us the strength for it.

Several years ago on Thanksgiving my “every need” was recent widowhood. At our Thanksgiving table was an empty plate and empty chair that left us devastated, brokenhearted, and grieving. Does God offer Himself as a sufficient resource for the common human experience of death that seems to come far too soon? He does. His tender care, His mercy, the hope of heaven, and His strength in the midst of our weaknesses were more real than I can communicate.

God entrusts us with suffering because His grace is sufficient. There is no need God does not intend to fill with Himself. And He entrusts us with the opportunity to put His sufficiency on display.

Dear God, I need Your all-sufficient grace today. Give me the strength to do what I cannot do on my own. Amen.