As I was preaching to my church this past Sunday, I confessed that I had been lying to them.
I am extremely burdened by the weight of what I carry as a pastor and as a disability and medical father. In a recent disability ministry training, we were discussing how to practically minister to others. An extremely helpful statement was made: “Don’t say, ‘Let me know if I can do anything to help,’ because most families will not let you know.”
Anyone who has gone through a struggle knows that the number of people who say that and the number of people who mean it are two completely different things.
When we were discussing this in our small group, I told those within my group what I later confessed to the church: I have, on hundreds of occasions, shown up to church and said that things were going great when, in reality, my life was collapsing around me.
Yet as I have been reading 2 Corinthians, I have realized that the Apostle Paul took an entirely different tactic. He was bold and honest about his suffering and his weaknesses.
Yet the same Apostle says that Christians should “do all things without grumbling or disputing” (Philippians 2:14).
So how do you talk about what is really going on in your life without grumbling? How do you unload the burdens you are carrying without complaining?
Paul gives us an answer in 2 Corinthians 1:3–5:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
Paul lays out his afflictions in the next few verses, describing how he was “utterly burdened beyond our strength” and that he “despaired of life itself.”
Paul will later go into even greater detail about his sufferings as he defends his apostleship. In 2 Corinthians 11:23–28, he writes:
“Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”
Paul is not wallowing here. He is not grumbling.
The difference comes in what his purpose is in sharing his burden.
Paul’s purpose is to boast in the Lord. As Paul suffers and details his sufferings, he is boasting that it is his weakness and suffering that bring glory to God and comfort to the church.
In chapter 1, he details how God, being the God of all comfort, is able to give him exactly what he needs to be comforted in every situation. He then explains that by sharing his suffering, he is also sharing the comfort he has received from Christ.
That changes the way we should think about sharing our suffering.
If you are tempted, like I have been, to be silent, then you know the fear that others will not know how to react. Maybe they will say something hurtful or offensive. Maybe they will offer some shallow answer to a burden they cannot possibly understand. Maybe they will simply not know what to say.
But we cannot let that fear rob us of the comfort that comes from sharing in Christ.
If we don’t share the hardship honestly, we cannot boast of the comfort. If we don’t share the sickness, we cannot boast of the miracle. If we don’t acknowledge the weakness, we cannot boast in the strength of Christ.
Paul did not hide his suffering because he was afraid that people might misunderstand him. He brought his suffering into the light because he knew that the God who had sustained him through it was worthy of being known.
Maybe part of the reason I have been so willing to tell my church that everything is fine is I fear being a burden or drawing attention to myself. But Paul shows us a better way and a better reason. Our affliction is intended for the blessing of others.
Faith does not require us to pretend that we are not suffering. Faith allows us to say, “I am suffering, and God is comforting me.” There is no boasting in pretending that the burden is light. The boasting comes when we carry the burden honestly and point people to the One who carries us.
Perhaps the church does not need Christians who pretend they have everything together. Perhaps it needs Christians who are willing to say, “I am weak. I am hurting. I do not know what God is doing. But I know that He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.”
We do not share our suffering so that people will feel sorry for us. We share it so that we can point them to Christ.
Because the comfort we receive from Christ was never meant to stop with us.
Brother, this is really good and encouraging. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.
I think scripture itself implicitly speaks to another dimension of this. Lament and expressions of suffering are repeatedly laid out in the pages of the OT especially – David, Job, Jeremiah, many others – and are not condemned. There seems to be some way in which God expects us to share our suffering, not only with him but with our communities; and this act of sharing somehow brings glory to him and healing to us. Suffering is always worst when it isolates us. What a grace of God that we can feel encouraged to bring it to a community of grace-filled believers!