Why Avoiding Suffering Is Making Men Spiritually Weak

Men’s group study guide available here.

The Inescapable Nature of Suffering

Suffering is an inescapable plague, a foregone conclusion—a relentless reality that weighs upon man daily.
Suffering is the silent force that influences and occupies much of our mental space.
Unconsciously, human beings configure their daily lives with the intention of avoiding suffering.

The time we rise in the morning.
The temperature of the shower (is it warm enough?).
The clothes we choose (are they comfortable?).
What we eat and drink prior to work (does it taste good?).
The route we take to work (the least amount of tension caused by traffic).

We choose comfort rather than pain, consolation rather than aridity, stimulation over silence.
And we believe that our lives are better because of these decisions—and in some ways they are.
Yet, by avoiding suffering, we may be limiting ourselves, stunting our personal and spiritual growth.

Which raises the questions: What is the potential of man? What can he achieve?
If this potential is so rich and grand, why do we avoid striving toward becoming the “great man,” the saint, the true man of God?
In other words, besides the fact that suffering inflicts pain, why do we resist and reject it?

Why We Avoid Suffering

Though this list may not be exhaustive, it highlights with precision several of the chief reasons why we avoid suffering and thus avoid becoming a holy and living saint.

1. The Loss of Eternal Vision

We fail to consider or believe in the reward.
We tether hope. We do not turn toward heaven and the goal of communion with God.
We fail to see ourselves as the heroic, mature man—the saint of God. We lack vision (of our holy self), and therefore we perish (see Proverbs 29:18).

2. Fear of the Unknown

We are incapable of knowing the terminus and intensity of the pain…
and this unpredictability instills fear that we may not be capable of enduring the plight.
Therefore, we cave in at the onset of the battle.

3. Disordered Love of Self Over God

We lack love for God, who is the object of our suffering.
It is for Him, and for love of Him, that we are to suffer heroically.
Instead, we choose the love of the false self over Him—e.g., Adam in the garden, submitting to Eve’s temptation.

4. Resistance to the Demands of Charity

We lack love of our neighbor.
The demands to serve our fellow man prove to be inconvenient—an interruption and a consumption of our time, attention, and effort.

5. Refusal to Acknowledge Weakness

We refuse to face or acknowledge our weakness, our limitation in the face of suffering.
To admit to ourselves that we are weak is too humiliating.

6. Fear of Greater Demands from God

We fear that by embracing suffering for God, God will see that we are trustworthy and therefore heap even more sufferings upon us.
We lack gratitude toward God and generosity for God.

7. The Abdication of the Intellect

Lastly, we suppress our intellect, which directs us to apprehend “the Good,” and instead allow the passions to dominate and subordinate the will.
The intellect is meant to direct the will toward the Good.
We turn a blind eye to the arduous work demanded to attain the good and select sedation and sensation instead.

The False Wisdom of Self-Preservation

When assessing these reasons from the perspective of self-preservation, they appear to be most reasonable.

Which brings us to the crux of the dilemma:
Is self-preservation a greater good than self-sacrifice?

Man must preserve himself in order to have a self to offer in sacrifice.
Yet, if a man continually protects and preserves his comfort, he fails to become a man of sacrifice.
In a sense, the self he preserves begins to rot.

Christ set His face toward Jerusalem to be handed over, tried, tortured, and ultimately executed (see Luke 9:51).
Rather than choosing self-preservation, He took upon Himself the just wrath due to our sinful conduct.
And because of this choice, we hail Him as the greatest and most heroic man in all human history.

God wants you to be such a man.

The Objection of Inadequacy

Initially, we scoff and balk at such a proposal.
The thought emerges: “I could never be Christ or be like Him.” “He is God—I am not.”

And this is precisely the point: Jesus wants us to become like Him. He wants us to allow God’s Spirit to live powerfully within us so that we may accomplish what only He can do.

This is the saint.
And this is the goal.

The Divine Scalpel of Suffering

Pride, presumption, and deep-seated self-preservation will be our ruin.
God desires to extricate that pride and presumption so that we become not like demons, but soar like angels.

To accomplish this, He uses the Divine Scalpel of suffering.

1. Suffering as Purification

It is God’s will that our intentions be most pure.
Too often, a man uses God to glorify himself rather than using himself to glorify God.
Yet to the one who is motivated purely to glorify God, God will glorify.
Still, men fail to believe.
“When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith?” (see Luke 18:8).

2. Suffering as Preparation

To those who are faithful in small matters, God grants greater responsibilities (see Luke 16:10).
Many men want to accomplish great things for God and yet have little desire to suffer for Him.
By means of small sufferings, God prepares us for greater missions and initiatives.

3. Suffering as Punishment

Yes, God punishes us for our offenses (see Psalm 99:8).
At times, we are steeped in sin and blind to the fact that our transgressions are rotting our souls.
In such circumstances, punishment is a most efficacious tool that God uses to awaken us to our soul’s gruesome condition.
The author of Hebrews exhorts us to “count all suffering as discipline from God” (Hebrews 12:7).

4. Suffering as Pedagogy

God wills not that a man be pusillanimous (faint-hearted) or effeminate (womanly, soft, weak).
Jesus raises disciples to be like Him, the Master.
He says as much: “No servant is greater than his master, but after he is taught, he is to become like his master” (Luke 6:40).
This is God’s purpose for your life—to make you like Him.
He uses suffering, trials, and tests as the means to teach us how to become true disciples who seek not their own gain.
Few men deem this reward worthy of the sufferings of this life.

5. Suffering and Solidarity

The man who suffers little loves little.
The man who suffers much—and suffers well—helps others in their sufferings.
Why? Because he knows the condition of suffering.
This knowledge inspires compassion.
If you lack compassion, it is because you have not yet learned to suffer well.
If you desire to become compassionate, then desire to suffer well.

Transforming Suffering Into Sacrifice

All men suffer, but few men sacrifice.
Those who convert their sufferings into sacrificial offerings unto God are empowered by the love of God to overcome fear.

Such a man:

Confronts his fear of suffering.
Uses his intellect to prudentially evaluate the good he desires to obtain—namely, union with God—as more worthy than the suffering at hand.
Subdues his passions, which incline him to seek a consoling route—a way to flee from suffering.
Incites his will to follow his intellect.
Offers the pain of suffering to God, and thus that suffering becomes a sacrifice. He has made the pain holy.

Love: The End of Fear

True love, as the holy Apostle says, casts out all fear (see 1 John 4:18).

We fear suffering because, deep down, we lack love.

This Lent, Let us pray for the gift to love God above ourselves. And in loving God above ourselves, we will love ourselves as God does. Yet, to do this, “we must endure many hardships before entering the Kingdom of Heaven” (Acts 14:22).

Men’s group study guide available here.