“I don’t get it!”

“Get what?” I replied, turning towards my friend.

“Why does everything in life have to be so hard all the time?! Why do bad things keep happening to Christians? Everybody else has it easy. Why is it us Christians who always have to have it so hard?”

Maybe you’ve been there, or worse, you’re still there. You try to live the Christian life as best you can. From your perspective, you do everything “right.” You go to church. You’re involved in ministry. You read your Bible. You pray every day. You pay your tithes. You avoid the gossip, backbiting, and rumor-mongering. 

You figure that while a little suffering is understandable from time to time, life should be at least tolerable. 

Now when things start to get tough, and you’re feeling stressed or alone, you may pray to God. After all, the Bible does say, “Ask and you shall receive.” But then you watch prayer, after prayer, after prayer seemingly go unanswered. 

You wonder when God will determine that you’ve been through enough. But like an overly demanding coach, God seemingly refuses to call time on your suffering. Instead, he seems to be doing the opposite.

What it can feel like God is saying when the hits keep coming 😂

No matter how much you pray, and even fast, “bad” things just keep happening to you. 

• Your fiancé breaks off your engagement
• You get laid off 
• Your girlfriend leaves you for her ex
• You don’t get into your dream school
• You pour your heart and soul into your business/relationship and it still fails
• Your spouse asks for a divorce
• You lose the bulk of your savings in the stock market
• Your child is diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder
• A blossoming relationship ends abruptly
• Your car gets totaled
• Your application gets denied
• You don’t match for residency
• You fail your entrance exam

Do you ever feel like the hits just won’t stop? When I first started writing this post I was definitely feeling that way. Now don’t get me wrong. I am very aware of how blessed and privileged I am in many ways. But it’s always too easy to identify areas where I’ve felt that God has let me down, especially by allowing things to happen to me (or my family) that I much rather had not. 

When I’m going through a tough time like that it can feel so easy (and even therapeutic) to just throw in the towel. “Shoot, if God refuses to take me out of the game, I’ll just bench myself then. He can’t stop me!” 😂

But while watching a classic, I gained a completely different perspective I wanted to share with you.

Storytime

I was going to see Creed III with a friend when my brother encouraged me to watch Rocky 1 first. “There’s no way you’ll understand what the Creed series is all about unless you watch that movie.” So I took his advice, and watched it on Netflix.

Though I’m not a huge boxing fan, there was something about this Rocky character that drew me in. Sure, he talked kind of funny and told ridiculously corny jokes (that I laughed way too hard at 🫣); but still, I just couldn’t help but root for him! While watching him undergo intense training, there was one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-scene that stood out to me.

Rocky was standing in the corner and holding on to each side of the ring. He stood there while his trainer, Mickey, punched him in the abdomen over, and over, and over, and over again.

I sat there watching this go down as the sweat poured off of him. It was obvious that the punches hurt, the pain clearly etched in his face. But one thing that stood out to me was how his focus never wavered. He never screamed, he never fought or pushed back, he never complained, he just…took it. 😳

I started to wonder to myself, “What would my life look like if, when suffering came my way, I had a similar attitude?”

What would your life look like if, when suffering came your way, you had a similar attitude?

One where you don’t yell, you don’t scream, you don’t assume your suffering means that “God is bad,” or “God hates you,” or “God doesn’t care about you.” One where you don’t complain, instead you just take it in stride. 

Now I know what you’re thinking. 

“That’s easier said than done. Besides, who in the heck takes pain and suffering in stride???” 

I’ll tell you who. The person who knows that they can trust the person allowing the suffering. The reason why Rocky never yelled, screamed, or fought back was not because he wasn’t in pain. Check out the clip above and you’ll clearly see he was. It was because he trusted Mickey. He trusted that if Mickey allowed him to go through this process, something good would come of it.

Can you trust God? Or, if you feel like you have a long history of being disappointed by Him, are you willing to give God another chance to prove that He is trustworthy and faithful? Can you trust that if God allows you to go through something rough He can—and will—bring something beautiful out of it and you?

Which kind of Christian handles suffering the best? The Christian who knows that they can trust the person allowing the suffering. Tweet this!

What would it look like if when the bad times came around, as they always do, you remembered that God still wants the best for you?

What if when suffering happened you told God, “I know this hurts, but I also know that you’re a good God and a good father. I trust that if you’re allowing this to happen to me there is a greater purpose I can’t see.” What if you used instances of suffering to ask God, “What might you be trying to grow in me” as opposed to shaking your fist at God and asking “Why me?!” 

Final thoughts

Now don’t get me wrong. Two things. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with venting to God about the things that bother you. He is your Heavenly Father after all. And Ps. 62:8 does say, “Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”

And secondly, while I’m wondering out loud what it would look like if you changed the types of questions you asked when you’re experiencing suffering, that isn’t to say that I have already learned to do this. To be frank, I definitely have not always responded to suffering in a positive way. Not at all! 🫣 I am still very much a work in progress. 

What if you used instances of suffering to ask God, “What might you be trying to grow in me” as opposed to shaking your fist at God and asking “Why me?!” Tweet this! 

Can I tell you something, friend? You and I live in a fallen world so suffering will come. That’s a given. Even then, God is not malicious. God is not wasteful. God is not spiteful. God doesn’t waste your suffering. There are a lot of things that God allowed in my life that I wish he hadn’t. But when I look back on those things now I can always see one or more things that came out of it. 

Either it grew me, changed my perspective, provided a testimony for others, or all of the above. It’s okay, and completely normal, to feel negative emotions when you are going through tough times. But imagine what your life would look like if, like Rocky, you remembered that God (in essence, your trainer) the person who allows you to take the hits, can and will find some way to bring beauty out of your pain.

What tough times are you currently going through? If it’s in your past, can you think of something positive that came out of that situation? Do you struggle to believe that God can bring something good out of your suffering? Do you struggle to believe your suffering will ever end? What advice would you give to someone struggling with this?