We all suffer.
In fact we are all presently suffering, and will continue to suffer in perpetuity.
Be it a soured relationship, financial burden, serious injury, or even the internet not working; to suffer is to experience life on Earth. Regardless of our status, wealth, or righteousness, suffering remains inescapable. But that doesn’t mean our lives are hopeless.
For suffering yields something. Untested our immune systems are fragile and susceptible, but with time and exposure we can develop robust and resilient responses that protect us. Similarly, the only way to develop muscle is to tear down the previous muscle so the body can build back a stronger replacement. Suffering similarly enables us to better navigate life by compelling us to draw closer to both God and Community in our despondency. For absent circumstances beyond our control and understanding, we will not search for wisdom beyond our control and understanding.
God had every option as to how insert Jesus into this World. The most creative being in history who designed everything from the duck-billed platypus to the solar system certainly possessed the intellectual horsepower to conjure up any manner of mechanisms for Jesus’ arrival on Earth. Yet he chose to give him a helpless and humble beginning and start as a baby. To eek out a meager existence as a child to a young tradesman and his new wife. For God deliberately selected Jesus’ vantage point knowing He would fully experience the struggle that is life from inception onward.
Like the rest of the life of Jesus, He lived this as a model for us to follow. For Jesus didn’t opt out of the suffering or retreat from the moment, but embraced it and drove forward knowing what was to come.
“Though he was God’s son, he learned trusting obedience by what he suffered, just as we do.”
We then are charged to do the same. Not to shy away from adversity and suffering but to lean in and embrace it. For what comes from it is what makes real progress possible.
If we can avoid the temptation to turn inward when adversity strikes, and instead accept that we need God and others to help us navigate our current challenges, we too can make progress. Maybe it's time to stop trying to go it alone and to embrace the resources all around us.