Acts: The Mission in MotherhoodSýnishorn

Suffering

My delivery with my first baby was long and difficult. After pushing for two and a half hours, the baby just wasn’t budging. I remember my fear when my doctor informed me my baby’s heart rate was dropping. He said I had three more contractions to try to push with the help of forceps before they needed to move to an emergency C-section. After being up all night in labor and having pushed for hours already, I was exhausted. But in those last set of pushes, I found the strength to press through by remembering what lay at the end of it all: holding my baby boy in my arms. Thankfully, I was able to deliver my baby safely with no emergency procedure!

While I was in labor, I never questioned if the struggle was worth it. I knew the purpose in the pain was to bring my son into the world, and so I had a reason to keep going. But unlike in labor and delivery, we often don’t see a clear purpose in the suffering we face in life, and this can make it hard to press on.

In Acts, a key figure is a man named Saul, who later becomes Paul, and his life is one full of suffering. Saul was originally a Jewish pharisee, a Jewish religious leader, devoted to persecuting Christians. One day while on a journey to the city of Damascus, God himself confronts Saul in a bright light, saying, “I am Jesus who you are persecuting.” Saul is blinded by the light and led into the city to wait for what might come next.

In Acts 9, we see that God sends a man named Ananias to go to Saul and pray for him that Saul might regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 9:15-16 declares God’s purpose for Saul: “For he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

In this series, we’re examining the lives of those described as being filled with the Holy Spirit and what it is that characterizes their lives and witnesses. As Acts 9 proclaims, Saul, who we’ll now refer to as Paul, is filled with the Holy Spirit that he might proclaim God’s name and suffer for it.

Immediately after his conversion, Paul begins teaching about Jesus in the Jewish synagogues.

We don’t even get to the end of chapter 9 before we’re told that the Jews are plotting to kill Paul. Throughout his missionary journeys, Paul brings many to faith, but he is also continuously rejected, imprisoned and persecuted.

Paul describes his suffering in 2 Corinthians 11:25-28, saying, “Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

If I were Paul, I’d be questioning God in all of this - I’m trying to spread the Gospel here, God. Why are you making the journey hard? Perhaps we question God in the suffering we face even as we seek to live our lives for Him. We wonder:

Why is God not relieving me from my postpartum depression or anxiety?

Why did God let our whole family get sick at such an inopportune time?

Why has God shut so many doors in my work life since becoming a mom?

Why has God left my prayer for new friendships in this season unanswered?

In one of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, The Horse and His Boy, Lewis tells the story of a boy named Shasta who, on the verge of being sold into slavery, runs away from his home with a talking horse named Bree. They set out to make their new home in Narnia. Along their journey, however, Shasta has many terrifying encounters with lions.

On the first part of their journey, Shasta and Bree are chased by a lion. In their run to get away, they end up meeting a girl named Aravis and her horse who are also running away. The four become close companions, and along their travels, Aravis learns of a planned attack on Narnia. While on their way to warn the kings and queens of Narnia, the four are again chased by a lion, only narrowly escaping with their lives.

While Shasta travels the final part of the journey alone in the dark of night, he becomes aware of a large lion walking beside him. Fearing for his life, Shasta says, “Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world.” The lion astonishingly speaks, saying, “I do not call you unfortunate.” Shasta replies, “Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” “There was only one lion,” the lion beside him says. “I was the lion.” The lion, who turns out to be Aslan, the creator and ruler of Narnia, explains how it was he who had chased Shasta and his horse to bring them to join with Aravis. It was he who chased the horses that they might run fast enough to reach the kings and queens in time with warning of the attack.

Shasta ends up saving Narnia and discovering that he is the long-lost son of Narnia’s king. Without the troubles and scares Aslan had allowed Shasta to go through, Shasta never would have ended up finding his home and saving his people.

We most likely will never get a clear-cut explanation of the suffering in our lives like Shasta did, but God’s truth for us is the same as Aslan’s was for Shasta: While God does not cause our suffering, God’s hand is sovereign in all our trials. He uses them to further the mission He has given us in carrying His name. In Paul’s life, for example, we see that in the years he spent unjustly imprisoned, he ended up writing his apostolic letters to churches, which are now books of the Bible that have encouraged and equipped countless numbers of people.

In whatever you might be facing, I want to remind you not to take your suffering as a sign of God’s apathy toward you. Following God does not prevent us from experiencing suffering; rather, suffering is actually a mark that we are a believer. In your trials, remember that you are full of the Holy Spirit and that you have been brought into God’s mission of salvation to carry God’s name wherever you might go. Remember that everything God does in your life is to further His mission. And remember that even when your trials look like terrifying lions, your good God is redeeming them in his perfect plan for you. Even when we don’t see a purpose, we can trust there is one, and push on.