For the Sake of Christ

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Three times, St. Paul prayed to God about whatever the "thorn in his side" the "angel of Satan" were.  Prayed for it to leave him.  And every time the answer: No.

He learned from it that power is made perfect in weakness, that we should be content with "weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints for the sake of Christ."  And there are times when I wish I could believe that all the suffering had a purpose.  That we were in training to be made stronger for an important trial to come.

But sometimes I feel like suffering is arbitrary.  Part of the fallen world.  Grace is sufficient in those cases as well, for Grace can carry us through the hard times, keep us from lashing out when we are angry or hurt, show us where we might find comfort.

But there are harships it's awkward to designate as "part of God's plan" or even the more general "for the sake of Christ."

For the sake of Christ...we suffer even pointlessly so that we might be better empathetic comforters of his people?

For the sake of Christ...we get endless coughs that...make us slow down and/or be grateful for when we're healthy?

For the sake of Christ...people are petty and small sometimes so we learn patience with them for when a similar test might come that's actually important?

For the sake of Christ...we deal with school shootings -- the fear they bring to us all and the tragedy they bring to ever more people?

For the sake of Christ...people suffer the hardships of racial oppression (not me, to be clear, I have lots of white privilege)?

I could go on, making this post more and more awkward.

But I sometimes wonder if we mistake a prayer for relief being unanswered as a hint from God that we're on the right track or it means something important.  As if God would remove our source of pain if only He could.

I think that's not the world we chose when we ate the Apple.  I think sometimes hardships and persecutions and weakness happens because it's built into the fallen world.  It's built into the choice between good and evil.  It's built into the desire to unravel good and evil in all their complexities and contradictions.  It's built into the fact that we fail at that project because our brainpower, even collectively, isn't up to that challenge.  Look how badly we've all messed up even the basics!

But can those sufferings still be for the sake of Christ?  Can we still offer to the Lord suffering and weakness and all the rest?  Can we, for the sake of Christ, agree to suffer in this fallen world He loved so much He died to save it?  Can we, for the sake of Christ, do the same?  Live and die for the sake of the fallen world that caused us so much pain?