How does suffering help us

The Tibetan monk Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen Rinpoche discusses four benefits of suffering: wisdom, resilience, compassion, and a deep respect for reality. Wisdom emerges from the experience of suffering. When things go well, we rarely stop to ask questions about our lives. A difficult situation, however, often forces us out of our mindless state, causing us to reflect on our experiences.

To be able to see deeply, to develop what King Solomon referred to as a wise heart, we must brave the eye of the storm. Nietzsche, a wise man himself, famously remarked that what does not kill us, makes us stronger. Suffering can make us more resilient, better able to endure hardships.

Just as a muscle, in order to build up, must endure some pain, so our emotions must endure pain in order to strengthen. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Everybody hurts sometimes, and allowing ourselves to feel this universal emotion links us together in a web of compassion. A theoretical understanding of suffering is as meaningless as a theoretical description of the color blue to a blind person.

To know it, we need to experience it. One of the most significant benefits of suffering is that it breeds a deep respect for reality, for what is. While the experience of joy connects us to the realm of infinite possibilities, the experience of pain reminds us of our limitations. It seems to me more than symbolic that when in ecstasy we often lift our head up, to the heavens, to the infinite, and when in agony, we tend to cast our gaze down to earth, to the finite.

In the same way that the synthesis between hubris and humility breeds psychological health, combining ecstasy and agony establishes a healthy relationship with reality. Ecstasy makes me feel invincible: it makes me feel that I am the master of my destiny, that I create my reality.

The question is, what do we do because of it? How does pain influence our relationships? Who do we become after experiencing pain? Important: This content reflects information from various individuals and organizations and may offer alternative or opposing points of view. It should not be used for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. As always, you should consult with your healthcare provider about your specific health needs. Does suffering help us grow into a better person?

Lisa Oz. Health Education. But I want them to know that one day, when their bodies have rotted and their lives have been forgotten, Jesus will call them out of their graves—not to float as disembodied souls in the sky, but to walk in resurrected bodies on the earth.

The one who called stars into being will also call them from death to life. I believe it is the only hope we have in the face of our inevitable end. But what fascinates me about this story is how little focus there is on Lazarus himself.

Rather, the narrative draws our gaze to profound questions: Why, if Jesus planned to heal Lazarus, did he not just do so in the first place? Why did he let Lazarus die, and leave Mary and Martha mourning for days? Why not tell Martha what he was planning to do right away? In this strange stretching of the story, we get a glimpse of the whole biblical framework for suffering.

This story illuminates both suffering and prayer. But the story of Lazarus upends this idea. Jesus is not a means to an end, a mechanism through which Martha can change her circumstances. He is the end. Her circumstances drive her to him. But it matters like a first meeting matters to marriage, or like birth matters to motherhood.

It is an entry point to relationship, a relationship formed through suffering as much as through joy. If, as Jesus claims, the goal of our existence is relationship with him, finding him in our suffering is the point.

Recognizing the role of suffering in our relationship with Christ helps us see through a common misconception about suffering from a Christian perspective. We are tempted to believe that suffering is a punishment for sin. But the Bible is clear that—while sin and suffering are clearly connected in a universal sense, and living in rebellion against God can cause us heartache now—the amount of suffering a person endures is not proportional to his or her sin.

The Old Testament book of Job dramatizes this point. Jesus reinforces it. Then Jesus heals the man. This teaching sets Christianity apart from the versions of Buddhism that teach karma and reincarnation. Within that logic, our present circumstances are the result of past actions: sins in a past life can determine suffering here and now.

Not so in Christianity. Indeed, if anything, Christianity reverses that paradigm: those who live in privilege now are warned of an afterlife of suffering if they do not take the radical medicine of Christ. While we can absolutely look for meaning in our suffering, we should not use it as a measuring stick for guilt, or think that if we only prayed harder or had more faith or did better, our lives would be suffering-free.

From a biblical perspective, we must also reject the idea that if God loves us, he cannot intend for us to suffer. This premise crumbles on every scriptural page. Time and again, we see those who are chosen and beloved by God suffering. Indeed, our beliefs about God and suffering expose the fault lines between our natural assumptions and the biblical narrative.

The loving, omnipotent God of our imagination would move swiftly from creation to new creation, from the garden of Eden of Genesis to the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation. But the God of the Bible charts a different course. He spreads his story out over thousands, even millions, of years and weaves in all the mess of human history—sin and sex and death and historical accident.

And at the center of history, he stakes the cross of his beloved Son. It is not even Plan B. It is the lynchpin around which all human history revolves, the central peg of reality itself. Indeed, it is the lens through which we visualize the narrative itself. But it is not the last word. The Lord of the Rings kindled my imagination as a child. My father read it to me. At a low point in the narrative, two central characters, Frodo and Sam, discuss where they are in the story.