Fixed vs Growth: The Challenge of Enduring

Difficulties in life refine our faith like gold, producing perseverance, character and hope.  Like athletes trusting a coach, we trust our God and His plans for us.  Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God knows the plans He has for us, plans to prosper and not harm us.  In verse 13, He says that we will find Him when we seek Him with our whole hearts.  The context is a time of exile, where Israelites may have felt abandoned by God.  It is in the worst of times that we rely completely on God; there is nothing left to rely on.  It is in these times that our faith grows.  Jesus promises us in Matthew 11: 28 – 30 that if we come to Him with our burdens, He will give us rest for our souls.  He does not overburden us, and He will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10: 13).  We come to Him for comfort in suffering, and in our sufferings we learn how to comfort others. 

“Life is hard.  But God is good.”  These are lyrics from a contemporary Christian song from the 1990’s, reminding us that life will be full of challenges, but we cannot become confused and think that pain and suffering in life mean that God is not good.  God is by His very nature, by definition, good; He is holy, perfect, flawless.  But His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55: 8-9).   Ecclesiastes 5: 1 – 3 tells us to approach God’s holiness with reverence, and to “let [our] words be few”—that is, resist the urge to rail against Him, to make assumptions about God’s motives or actions.  In contrast, many of the Psalms are lengthy cries to God, begging Him for mercy and to provide insight and guidance.  At first glance, this is confusing and contradictory—let your words be few, but compose verse after verse pleading with God.  The concept that allows us to see both as true is the constancy of God’s goodness and love:  if you are going to question God’s goodness, then keep your mouth shut, let your words be few; but if you are going to cry out to God for understanding and for mercy, trusting in His goodness but asking only that He give you insight and strength, then call to Him all night (Psalm 6:6) and use many verses to do it (Psalm 22). 

1)      Read 2 Corinthians 1: 3 – 11.  Consider one purpose of suffering, according to verse 4.  Are there people in your life who have learned to comfort others through their own suffering?  How have you been blessed by them?  How have your sufferings given you the ability to comfort others?

2)      What is another purpose of suffering according to verse 6?  Reflect on some of the major times of suffering in your life.  How did those times prepare you to endure other challenges?

3)      According to verses 8 through 10, what is our perspective as Christians when we endure extreme suffering?  Meditate specifically on verse 9.

4)      Read Psalm 6.  According to verse 4, why can we confidently call to God to save us when we are struggling and feeling overwhelmed?

As Christians, we trust in the goodness and love of God.  We are constantly reminded of His nature, His love for the world and His desire to save it; and how He implemented that plan through the death of His son Christ.  We trust in Him for forgiveness, and for the ultimate victory over sin and death.  We trust that the difficulties of life are for our good and His glory, and we face challenges in faith, empowered by His Spirit.  But life IS hard.  The effort can feel overwhelming.  Considering again “growth verses fixed” mindset:  a fixed mindset sees effort as fruitless, while a growth mindset sees effort as the path to mastery.  We know we aren’t going to “master” life; Paul’s cries against his sinful nature are all too familiar to all of us (Romans7), and we know that the victory over sin belongs to Christ (Galatians2:20).  Ephesians 2: 8 and 9 leaves no room for us to believe that our efforts contribute to our salvation.  What is left to grow in, what is left to master in life?  Can we appropriately have a growth mindset when it comes to Christian effort?  According to 2 Corinthians 1: 3 – 11, we can grow in our ability to persevere and remain faithful in troubles, and in our ability to comfort and empathize with others who struggle.  While in no way does this passage mean that God causes troubles and pain, the implication is that He uses them to develop and grow us.  Our God is able to use even pain for His glory and our good.

In his book “The Problem of Pain”, CS Lewis describes the challenges and the opportunities for giving God glory which exist because we have bodies, physical earthly bodies.  If we were only souls, floating through the universe full of only thoughts and desires without the ability to act, the only challenge to free will would be subjecting our will to God’s will. But we are souls encased in bodies, living in a universe full of matter upon which we can exert our will and surrounded by other human beings who are also in possession of souls, bodies and free will.  

This creates a situation where I could beat my neighbor with a bat and steal his car; or be envious of her physical appearance and Pinterest successes and make rude gestures behind her back.  The converse is also true:  I have a body and the universe is full of things to change, so I can choose to help the neighbor stranded with the broken car on the side of the road, let him use my phone to call the tow-truck and feed him half of my lunch; I can listen kindly to the sadness of my neighbor over a cup of coffee in the sunshine, I can hold her hand and promise to help with the kids later that day.  The broken car, the tow truck, the coffee and sunshine, the holding of a hand, the needy children:  these physical things allow us physical ways to live out our faith. The world is full of opportunities for love and empathy; many of those opportunities are driven by the existence of the physical world and human free will, the same things which create opportunities for sin, evil and harm.   Life is full of challenges, and these challenges create opportunities for great effort.