“Oh, there are things done in the world today / Would root up faith.”
“Yet Listen Now,” Amy Carmichael
“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together…. And not only the creation, but we ourselves… groan inwardly.”
Romans 8:22-23, the Apostle Paul
Suffering clothes every last man, woman, and child ever born into the human race. To breathe this world’s atmosphere is to know hurt, and there are no exceptions. The agony tucked away within a single human heart could unravel the very fabric of the universe were it let loose. And that’s true of the rich, the poor, the old, the young, of men, of women, and of people of every color and nation and creed. If you’ve lived, you’ve ached. And the aches of the human soul are as terrible as they are common.
Lives shattered. Hearts broken. Souls stepped on. Dreams dimmed. Relationships ruined. And that’s all before high school graduation. Then these fragile clay pots called people enter the “real” world where they experience their hopes melted like ice cream in August, their sense of worth warped, their marriages turned to mulch, and their candles extinguished. Jobs chew them up and spit them out. Friends are few and fair-weather. Good intentions are not enough. Disunity, disease, and death seem to be the only constants.
We all know the dread—the hopelessness that has slinked up around our necks unawares and begun to squeeze. It is no small groaning that we have all done in our lifetimes.
We tread lightly with those who hurt—or at least we should—mainly because their pain is, in the end, ours. It is good to weep with those who weep mainly because we’re going to need those weepers when it’s our turn.
And.
I choose that word very carefully. I don’t say “but” here. I say “and,” and I say it on purpose. We recognize and lament the cuts we’ve all taken to the bone and the excruciating pain that has cracked us through to the very core.
And.
And we take a deep breath, lift our eyes up and away from the grief that clings to us like mud on shoes, and we understand that, in fact, we have a much bigger problem.
The reality of that bigger problem in no way minimalizes the hurt suffered throughout this journey of life. Instead, it puts it into proper perspective. There is something more serious than all the hurt you and I have ever felt. There is something of more gravity with which we must concern ourselves even than mistreatment, abuse, or rape. We should cry our eyes out with those who have been mistreated, abused, and raped. And we should cry our eyes out with even more intensity over a problem that threatens not only their bodies and minds but also their very soul.
You see, in the final analysis, personal sin is always a much more serious problem than personal woundedness. Our wounds are real and they stink and they hurt. Compassion a mile wide and two miles deep is the only appropriate response to such suffering.
And.
And sin is even more serious.
The five-year-old little girl who was abused by her father has been broken at the hands of a man whose job was to protect her and provide for her. The wrath of God upon such a man is hot and heavy. Jesus said it would be better for that man to tie a boulder around his neck and throw himself into the ocean than for him to harm a child. And save repentance and faith, I’d like to think the fires of hell burn especially hot for such men.
And.
And if you fast-forward in that little girl’s life thirty years to the moment at which she must confront the woundedness of her past, even in her case, her own personal sin is a more serious problem for her even than her personal woundedness. Let’s say she’s mad at God for letting her father abuse her like he did. Let’s say she has nursed a grudge against God for the past 30 years. She doubts his goodness. She questions his character. She’s suspicious of him. She doesn’t think he’s trustworthy or actually cares about her. She’s poised to take her seat upon the bench as judge and put God on trial.
We understand her feelings of course. We’ve all felt them, too. We’ve all doubted God like she has, and we’ve all sinned to the same extreme as she has by so besmirching the character of God.
However, her woundedness will not ultimately be the thing that separates her forever from the single source of good in all the universe. Her personal sin will do that. And was not doubt in God’s goodness at the root of the very first sin in the garden? We’ve been second-guessing God’s goodness ever since.
Do we throw stones at the 35-year-old woman who, with tears running down her face, finds it nearly impossible to trust God because she was abused at age five? No. We should weep with her for as long as she weeps.
And.
And when the tears dry up and when a moment of calm is reached—even if it’s just for a short time—we should gently and graciously take her hand and help her see that the closed fist she keeps shaking at God is a greater threat to her final, eternal happiness than even the abuse she suffered all those years ago.
This reality does not minimize human suffering. Instead, it reveals the unspeakable horrors of the sin that dwells in us.
When I am sinned against, the sin that dwells within me goes to work. There are a million sinful reactions that begin to bubble up and out of the human heart: anger, bitterness, strife, malice, judgmentalism, hate, distrust, and suspicion, just to name a few. And if that weren’t enough, what do I do but turn toward everything but the One who knit my soul together for help. I dig out broken cisterns that can’t hold water. I turn to our modern day versions of Assyria for reinforcements. I stare at Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or my smartphone or a book to somehow serve me up a savior from my pain. I so badly want to find my hope in likes or a picture with a witty comment or a mind-numbing video or a movie or whatever else it might be. Or I turn to my wife or my work or my friends or my students and, like a tick on a dog, seek to suck them dry in a desperate attempt to fill what’s so obviously lacking within me. That is the essence of idolatry. And all the while I begin to cultivate a suspicion that God has let me down and can’t be trusted.
Sin is that slippery.
It has been good for me to confront past hurts and to forgive the pain that others have caused me. And while I’ve been at it, I’ve found that it’s even more helpful for me to repent of the sin that I’ve allowed to creep in in response to my woundedness.
I don’t minimize your past suffering.
And.
And while we’re standing by one another, let’s not heal our broken arms only to ignore our broken legs. I want healing from past pain like everyone else. And I want healing from a much more serious infection called sin—this inclination within the heart to turn to everything but God for salvation and hope, this nagging doubt as to whether or not he’s really trustworthy. True love addresses both broken arms and broken legs with patience and longsuffering and compassion that are as warm and refreshing as an afternoon sun after a rainstorm.