“After You Have Suffered”

by N.E. Rhodes, Jr.

The New International Version translates 1 Peter 5:10 as follows: “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”

God permits us to suffer and then restores us. This entire process makes us strong, firm, and steadfast. How does it do that?

The poet Wordsworth said that most of his greatest poetry came to him when he was lying in bed at night. It was in a time before the invention of incandescent bulbs and they had no electric lights. By the time Wordsworth had arisen and lighted a candle the great thoughts would have left him. For this reason he taught himself to write in the dark. You and I should learn this art, for it is tragic to go through the darkness of suffering and yet miss the illumination and strength it was intended to bring us.

What can we learn from suffering and the subsequent restoration? We learn certain fundamental principles that govern victorious living. We learn that nothing is ever as bad as we feared it might be. We learn that no person is ever so broken, or unhappy, or burdened but that there is a way through to victory. We learn that God provides either a way out of every problem or else a glorious way to bear it. We learn that we exist under the shadow and within the thought of God and that the mind of God is benevolent, wise, and eternally peaceful. He changes not but is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The least result of laying hold of this knowledge is that the man who does so becomes established in an inner peace which must mark him out from his fellows as a person of envied poise (see Philippians 4:7). After he has found this peace, others will come to him—young and old—and question him for the secret which seems to have eluded them. He will show them the way, and they in turn will show others the way (see 2 Corinthians 1:4). Thus do we become, as promised by God, strong, firm, and steadfast.

Notice the tremendous claim of Philippians 4:11: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Paul knew how to enjoy poverty and how to handle prosperity. He found complete satisfaction in either state. In the next verse he claims the ability to face with complete poise whatever situation might come. Surely, then, he had the thing the world needs most, and not only the world, but many Christians as well. Many of us have the answers to questions of doctrine but cannot face adequately the problems of daily living and periods of suffering.

Our Best Hours

Paul taught in Galatians 5 that we are not one but two selves—the flesh and the spirit. The art of life is to walk after or identify with the best self, the self indwelt by the Spirit of God. We do this by believing in the hours when the Spirit is in control. We must then be able to know our best hours. They are not necessarily when we are making a lot of money or are being highly praised.

Paul knew his best hours. What he experienced on the Damascus Road and the three days thereafter was a time of blindness and suffering, but God delivered him. He remembered what he felt when he wrote 1 Corinthians 13, even though it was a time of great danger for a congregation Paul loved and over which he agonized. These were his best hours, and he remembered them.

When we are at our worst, it is hard to trust in Christ. But in high moments the fog departs and we are sure. This is one of the great evidences of the truth of Christianity. It is in our best hours that the Christian view of life is most real.

One thing Paul got out of his best hours was a sound mind (see 2 Timothy 1:7). In all of his burdened life he was mentally and emotionally healthy. He endured poverty, persecution, criticism, ingratitude, and long imprisonment, but his last testimony comes from an unspoiled and unembittered soul (see 2 Timothy 4:6-8).

Listen to the complaints of a bitter person about sin, suffering, injustice, toil, sickness, and rivalry. You cannot deny any of it. But as soon as you meet the thankful, unembittered person, you know which attitude is right and real. When you are blessed by the company of a generous believing soul, full of radiant and indomitable good will, all argument gives way before the human fact. Let another’s logic argue what it will, this is the healthy-minded person.

Altering Our Suffering

When God restores us after we have suffered, we know that to alter our attitude toward suffering is to alter the suffering itself. All the water in the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Suffering cannot sink a person unless he lets it foster doubt and self-pity in his mind. Alter your attitude and you have changed relationship with the whole spiritual world.

This was Paul’s settled attitude. He looked back and saw a time when he had been the chief of sinners, but he didn’t dwell on it (see Philippians 3:13). Instead he remembers the great hours and flings forth his challenge to the future: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

In the early days the whole church was like this. They went about preaching what Christ had done for them in their great hours. Had they been as dismal as some of us, they could have gone about whining, “What’s wrong with the church?” There was reason for such a question, as the Corinthian letters make all too plain. But they preferred to take counsel of their great hours rather than whine over their low times. We could do that just as honestly. If only we would ring out more of the Good News about Jesus Christ and less of the bad news about what is wrong with the church, we would do greatly better. Poor things we may be, but is it not marvelous that Christ has made even this we often arbitrarily settle on various targets, God himself being the most likely target.