Suffer AND Rejoice?

²⁴ Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, ²⁵ of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known. Colossians 1:24-25

What happens when you cut a butterfly out of its cocoon?  You ultimately render the butterfly no better off than before it entered.  In the desire to shield the butterfly from the pain, struggle and suffering, you took away from it the very thing that it needed to go through to develop properly.  Without the struggle, the butterfly’s internal juices don’t flow to its wings and they never become flight ready.  In removing its suffering, you have removed its flight.

Suffering, pain, difficulty and hurt are all things we generally do all we can to avoid. So why does Paul say this? How does he rejoice in his sufferings?  The answer is in the now.  “Now I rejoice in my suffering.”  Means he’s looking back on what he has already said: I rejoice in my suffering in light of the gospel I am declaring to you, in light of the reconciliation that happened at the cross for me. This gospel message has gripped all of who I am, so much so that I can say that I rejoice in my sufferings. Paul says, I rejoice. It is my pleasure and joy to suffer like this. 

You may still think Paul a couple of Crayolas short of a full box. It is not because it feels good or he enjoys pain for the sake of pain. So why? He enjoys being closer to Jesus, he enjoys having to rely more fully on the gospel message in order to make it, and He enjoys God receiving the glory. Which at times means suffering for him.  Paul knows that God never wastes an ounce of our suffering and pain.  Our suffering is often the means that God uses to extend his message to others around us, and deeper into our hearts for his glory.  Paul is both called to suffering by God and he embraces it knowing that it is from God to further the gospel.

Our suffering in the same way is also the means by which we draw closer to God.  Suffering pushes us further than we were before by showing us that the other things we were relying on before don’t hold water.  Sometimes it is only when we are sinking that we absolutely have to rely on Jesus more.  Specifically, pain and suffering is here to stay when we proclaim and present the gospel.  We have to see suffering in our Christian life as normal.  Some use it to gain prestige and attention instead of embracing it as normal.  God intends for us to suffer for the message of the gospel.

Ultimately suffering for the sake of the gospel is a stewardship. Paul says that this part of “the stewardship from God that was given to me for you.”  This means that he would be beat up shipwrecked, stoned, maligned, mistreated, thrown out of cities and left for dead for proclaiming the gospel. He says about these things, I rejoice  What difference would it have made knowing that this was a calling from God?   A huge one.  The suffering and the struggle was accomplishing something in Paul just like the butterfly. An undivided and devoted heart for Jesus Christ.

Paul was given this stewardship from God in order “to make the Word of God fully known.”  He sees that to be a servant of the gospel means being a servant to the church. Paul joins the long line of Scripture writers in revealing to us what God’s will is. He lays down his life for the church to proclaim Christ in all His fullness and even be persecuted and put to death for doing so. That suffering leads him to rely on Jesus Christ his Savior, and that reliance causes him to rejoice.  The question is then, what are your sufferings causing to happen in you? A cold, bitter, frustrated heart? Or a deeper reliance on Christ? If the former, seek God’s design in your current suffering. If the latter, you can say with Paul that you rejoice in your sufferings because the lead you closer to Jesus.