Lessons Learned Through a Medical Crisis

John: Well, I love the question, and I embarrassedly admit that as a pastor of 25 years at that point, I really didn’t have a theology of suffering. I was an American, middle-class, white guy that had things pretty easy and had come my way. I hope I had some empathy for people in crisis. We certainly did a lot of good things at the church for those in various life stages of crisis or pain, but I was more of an outsider looking in.

So yes, passages of Bible that I once used as inspired Scripture but never really sank into my soul suddenly began to find their way of nourishment and profound feeding for me. Isaiah 43 is kind of a classic where God says, “I’ve summoned you by name; you are mine. I’ve redeemed you.” And the very next verse says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; they will not set you ablaze.”

We just look at it and say, “Great! God’s going to be with us.” Well, look at it more closely. His summoning us by name, his redeeming us is not a guarantee that we’ll never have rivers and fires. We will have his protection in the midst of them. We’ll have his presence, but we do go through deep waters and very difficult places as his children. So, it’s not a pass from suffering. It’s a strength to pass through the suffering as a deepened person.

I was speaking at a men’s retreat in California a few years back, and I gave this story. A guy in a wheelchair about my age rolled up to me and only said one sentence then rolled on. He said, “John, don’t you feel bad for people who’ve never suffered?” And I thought, “Wow. I get it now.” I didn’t then but there’s a shapening and deepening that comes. That’s all part of this theology of suffering — understanding the presence of God in the midst of very difficult times. And yes, I had to wrestle through that.