Suffering has been the latest Sunday school topic at my church. The class has been very helpful and thought-provoking. It has probably been challenging for the teacher to try to condense this weighty subject because suffering touches on the sovereignty of God, the problem of evil, justice, and ethics to name a few. But the class has been the easy part. The hard part will be applying what I have learned.

Also a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Just because I’ve read books or have been through a class on suffering doesn’t necessarily mean I will be sensitive to others in their pain. As I’ve been mulling over this, here are some thoughts that come to mind:

• Don’t lump a suffering in a single category. The sorrows of life in a fallen world are not the same as evil being perpetrated by sinful people.
• Don’t put suffering on a scale and be the judge of who is suffering more or less.
• Be careful of an unbalanced view of God’s sovereignty such that the categories of good and evil are lost. Just because good may come of something does not make evil good.
• Be careful when the big picture is so big that we lose sight of the present suffering of real people. May they never become mere cogs in the wheel of God’s purpose. He is compassionate, and we should be too.
• Pursuing justice is not the same as vengeance. Justice according to Romans 13 can be a demonstration of loving one’s neighbor.
• Platitudes may hurt more than help. My pet peeve is the “better than I deserve” saying. This may be applicable for someone complaining about their first world problems. But this minimizes suffering and also eliminates the categories of good and evil. This saying can be toxic depending on the situation. Would I tell this to a child who was sexually abused or to his/her parents? God forbid! They do not deserve this to happen to them!
• Be careful of assuming I know what someone is going to learn from their suffering. Who has known the mind of God and who has been His counselor? Is that me? I don’t think so.
• Be careful of pushing the “happy ending” and pressuring someone to stop grieving sooner than they are ready. Some people will carry those pains to their graves. Who am I to tell them to “get over it?”
• Be careful of pushing the “happy ending” for selfish reasons. The sooner they “get over it”, then I don’t have to deal with my own discomfort that has arisen as a result of someone else’s suffering.

You have probably borne the brunt of well-meaning but insensitive comments as have I. Maybe taking the time to consider how we apply what we know about suffering will help us to not inadvertently hurt when we mean to help.

Addendum with additions to the list:

• Christ’s suffering was unique because it was for the purpose of atonement. I would be very careful of making a one-to-one correlation between His suffering and ours. He is God. I am not. He has the power to save. I do not. To imply that my suffering is somehow salvific is IMO emotional blackmail and can be used to keep someone in a dangerous position. e.g. domestic abuse.
• Suffering well does not negate self-defense.
• Suffering well is not asceticism or fatalism.
• But can “suffering well” morph into works righteousness?

Persis Lorenti is an ordinary Christian. You can find her at Tried With Fire and Out of the Ordinary. This article appeared at her blog and is used with permission.