Suffering — it’s not my favorite topic. In fact, I prefer not to talk about it until it has passed. If you are in the midst of it, I’m not sure anything helps, even when you understand how miraculous your suffering empowers you. Not power like we see today. But the power to understand. And something more that is not easily described. But the power to help others.
But why do we suffer? Why did Christ choose to suffer? And what is this tough doctrine? The need to suffer.
I suppose we all agreed to this before we were born into our telestial world. So we must have known that there is a purpose to suffering. I get it — the teaching that there must be opposition in all things. I understand the theory and reality that through experience, I learn to appreciate the good and have empathy for those who have gone through similar things. I guess that means I am not really that great at helping someone with the things I have not suffered. But I believe we are all prepared to help others who have gone through the things we have passed through. There is someone out there that will understand your suffering and be a savior to you. And you, too, can become someone’s savior through your suffering.
We each have different things that we suffer — mental health, abuse, infidelities, injustices, physical conditions, pain, fear, loss — you name it, someone is suffering in a unique way, similar to yours.
I believe this is how we become part of the fellowship of the suffering servant. This is how we become saviors on Mount Zion. Not like Christ, who has suffered all our physical and spiritual pains, but we suffer to help others in similar struggles on a smaller scale.
Jesus also “descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things” (D&C 88:6; see also D&C 122:8). How deep that descent into despair and abysmal agony must have been! He did it to rescue us and in order to comprehend human suffering. Therefore, let us not resent those tutoring experiences which can develop our own empathy further (see Alma 7:11–12). A slothful heart will not do, and neither will a resentful heart. So being admitted fully to “the fellowship of his sufferings” requires the full dues of discipleship (Philip. 3:10; see also 1 Cor. 1:9).
Moreover, Jesus not only took upon Him our sins to atone for them, but also our sicknesses and aching griefs (see Alma 7:11–12; Matt. 8:17). Hence, He knows personally all that we pass through and how to extend His perfect mercy—as well as how to succor us. His agony was all the more astonishing in that He trod “the wine-press alone” (D&C 133:50).
On occasion, the God of heaven has wept (see Moses 7:28). One ponders, therefore, the agonies of Jesus’ infinite Atonement and the feelings of the Father—for His Son and for us. There are no instructive, relevant revelations, but our finite, emotional extrapolations come flooding in anyway! (Neal Maxwell)
Suffering can become a Sacrifice.
Our sufferings can become our sacrifices in our ascent to a higher level, where we become servants to God. But we need to consecrate our sufferings instead of becoming bitter —
Our choice is thus between consecrating our sufferings to God in the name of Jesus—as a freewill offering or else it is in vain—or suffering regret later for having procrastinated the day of our exaltation. (Isaiah Institute)
We often think of sacrifices as things we give up. We do not often think of suffering as a sacrifice because we don’t choose to do it — low and behold; it falls upon us in all its pain and emotional upheavals. And maybe we go through it and become bitter, but maybe later, we look back and realize there is something much more to all this suffering we went through. We are being prepared to serve another person at some later date. But we need to ask God to consecrate our sufferings to that end. Consecrate means to make sacred.
Consecrate: Late Middle English: from Latin consecrat- ‘dedicated, devoted as sacred’, from the verb consecrare, from con- (expressing intensive force) + sacrare ‘dedicate’, from sacer ‘sacred’.
True, Christ became the sacrificial lamb on the altar, willingly giving his life. But we should not forget the suffering part of that. He suffered. It was not easy. He asked that the bitter cup pass, if possible. Suffering has some great value that is not replaced by reading about it, hearing about it, or watching it—tough doctrine. But truly, we only become like Christ when we have suffered something that consecrates our becoming more like Him and better able to serve and help someone else who has suffered as we have.
This interesting purpose of suffering is also addressed in the near-death experiences of Spencer when his guide explains how suffering works:
“Only individuals like you, who have been willing to undergo similar pain and abuses as these people have, will they ever listen to and trust. You must continue to drink of this bitter cup and not become bitter yourself. This will give you the experience and knowledge you need so that when you are called to work with these people, they will trust you and recognize in you that you are a fellow sufferer and refugee from persecution. These sufferings and your personal triumph over them will be written on your very soul and into the sinews of your body, and they will recognize it and trust you.”
Then he said something that I have pondered for years. He added, “They will see that you also belong to the ‘Fellowship of the Suffering of Christ.’ ”
Pontius, John. Visions of Glory: One Man’s Astonishing Account of the Last Days (pp. 82-83). Cedar Fort, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
If you look back over your life, you will begin to identify your sufferings that have prepared you to connect with and actually save someone, someone who will recognize that you too have suffered the same and overcome those things. We each have a vital role to play if we can look at our sufferings from this perspective. Otherwise, it makes no sense to come to this earth and experience suffering. And that is the hard doctrine.
