I was reading tonight and found myself rereading a few verses of biblical poetry over and over again, because once again my memories returned me to Iraq and to a series of messages I heard when I heard another Bible teacher preach words I’ve read many times. Follow me.

Question: Can suffering be a good thing?

The question, of course, demands more explanation. What is meant by suffering? And what is good? What’s the definition? Who defines the value dictionary, in other words? Is it in flux, just anyone’s whimsical definition? Or is the meaning fixed, because it’s rooted in the transcendent and holy? Can ostensibly ‘bad’ things/events/people be used for ‘good’ and/or usher in the good?

It’s a deliberately complex question. But here’s the story…

The Story: I was in Iraq. I had been teaching for months through the 21 chapters of John’s gospel. And the Lord had grown the footprint for gospel inroads through the expositional teaching of Scripture–just one verse after another through John’s gospel. I was seeing men and women from Iraq, Uganda, Kenya, the U.S., Denmark, and more come to be gripped by God and His gospel of redemption.

But I was physically exhausted. I either preached and/or oversaw eight services every week. I was in my element, and it played to my strengths for hard work in ministry, but I was physically and emotionally spent. My body was telling on me, as my dear grandmother was wont to say. “Your bones will talk to you, Rooster,” she’d say. And as with almost everything Momo ever taught me via her godly and country ways, she was spot on.

So, to return to the story, I was tired; my bones were talking to me. I asked another person to teach for a few iterations. And one of the verses my substitute Bible teacher focused on was, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71, ESV).

Tonight as I read this verse and the context of Psalm 119, and especially the TETH section of the Hebrew psalm, replete with its puns and literary excellence, the thrust throughout the whole poem is the beauty of the King of kings and His torah, His law/statutes/Word.

And yet here’s that verse, saying it’s ‘good’ that the believer is afflicted. Why? That he might learn God’s statutes. In other words, wisdom and practice. To know God, to know God’s ways, but also to live those ways out, to not hide wisdom under the basket, but to teach it, herald it, live it out, and to transform lives via the words of the only wise God. It’s to know God in one’s bones.

Summation via Scripture: For a long, long time now, one of the books to which my Bibles fall open (not just Ecclesiastes, believe it or not) is 2 Timothy, especially chapter 4, and verses 9-18. I will paste them below and then draw this to a close for now:

⁹ Do your best to come to me soon. ¹⁰ For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. ¹¹ Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. ¹² Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. ¹³ When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. ¹⁴ Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. ¹⁵ Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. ¹⁶ At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! ¹⁷ But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. ¹⁸ The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Concluding Thoughts: These were among the last words Paul ever wrote. After this, he was beheaded under Nero’s reign in Rome, Italy. Last words are important.

Paul says, in essence, it was ‘good’ he was afflicted. Why? Because through that affliction, in that crucible, through that suffering, he came to know God more profoundly and was more fitted for ministry to others. He was “rescued from the lion’s mouth” (2 Tim 4:17b) again and again via the sovereign mercies of God.

Encouragement: The Christian worldview does not gloss over suffering. It admits it head-on and speaks to it on page after page of Scripture. Affliction can indeed be a good thing when it’s understood as a means of God refining His people through the fires of trials. Be steadfast, pilgrim. Trust the Lord. Do good. And know that God really is good–not just some of the time, but all of the time, even and especially in the crucible of suffering.