“Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.”

So wrote John Donne.

I suppose he should have known. After sending five of his children and his wife into eternity and suffering under the wrack of stomach cancer, he preached his own funeral and posed in a death shroud for his final painting. I imagine him as the legend describes, wrapped in a sheet while the painter pretended the poet was dead and waited for him to stop itching.

Affliction is a treasure, he claimed. He should know. But still. No child in the history of mankind, when asked what he would like to do when he grows up, has ever responded, “I want to suffer.”

I, for one, did not. In fact, for most of my life I’ve tried to evade suffering with any number of poor tactics:

1. I tend to minimize suffering: Instead of facing the dark reality of our pain and recognizing my own brokenness, I simply try to “suck it up.” The “Pull-Yourself-Up-By-The-Bootstraps” approach to suffering is not a godly one.

2. I tend to moralize suffering: Instead of aknowledging the complexity of suffering, I assume that bad things happen only to those who did something wrong. The story of Job is a hard argument for those of us who lean this way.

3. I try to fix suffering: I often assume that suffering is a roadblock to my happiness and, therefore, an evil to be avoided instead of an opportunity to meet God. Generally speaking, I want pain-free living and not God-full living.

4. I tend to compare my suffering: Instead of facing my pain, claiming my pain, and entering into it, I dismiss it by comparing myself to someone who has a more difficult trial than my own. I say stuff like, “It could be worse.”

5. Finally, I sometimes buy into the self-improvement approach to suffering: I often assume that the whole point of my suffering is to make me a better person. It’s no comfort to someone in suffering to tell them that it will all work out in the end or that they will be a better person as a result. It’s not even necessarily true. It might all work out in the end, but we’re still never the same. And we might be a better person afterward, but we might not be. So much depends upon our response to suffering and there are no pat answers.

These are all terrible ways to respond to suffering, but they’re always easiest because they are a flight response away from suffering.

I experienced a health collapse In 2009 that crippled many of my faculties nearly overnight. Suddenly, walking, reading, and feeding myself were incredibly difficult. It dragged on long enough to pull me into a wilderness of despair where I hit rock bottom. That kind of experience forces us to ask hard questions and it also exposes our view of suffering. Is suffering unmanly? Is grieving an un-Christian thing to do? Will I claim and face my pain? So here’s what I wished I knew before I hit rock bottom: There are right responses and wrong responses to suffering.

Let’s respond rightly by leaning into suffering. It’s much harder to lean into suffering. It’s much harder to grieve and, thereby, reshape the way we imagine the world and ourselves.

But a study of Scripture reveals that the Bible always takes the hard path. It never minimizes suffering. Examples abound, but one will suffice: When Jesus wept in the garden of Gethsemane, he was suffering and he was leaning into suffering. He was the God-Man, sinless and joy-filled, but he sweat blood in his anguish and he grieved. He was NOT unmanly. He did not try to evade suffering. Christ was certainly NOT a Stoic and those who call themselves his disciples should not be Stoics either.

Maybe it’s time to imitate Christ by living more whole-heartedly, more authentically, more deeply. Maybe it’s time to do the hard thing and lean into suffering.

Suffering is unpredictable, unknowable, and very real. How we live through suffering really matters.

My upcoming book, A Small Cup of Light, helps sufferers lean into their grief. If you want to live more whole-heartedly, more authentically, and more deeply, then you’ll want to get your hands on this book. It’s hope for the hopeless and you can get your copy at Amazon on August 30th…

Okay, the truth is you can actually get your copy right now. I’ll start the official ten day book launch on August 20th with a big surprise you don’t want to miss on August 30th. If you want to experience the book launch with me…and don’t want to miss out on the surprise… just scroll up to the top of my homepage and subscribe to my blog.