I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
-Paul
The suffering that Paul speaks of here is the gap created between desire and satisfaction. Paul was not a sated man. Contended, but not satisfied. He longed, aspired, desired, hoped, dreamed, and, because of that, he prayed. And he enjoyed fellowship with Jesus because of it.
Our desires are generally quite paltry. (Instead of Paultry, maybe?) We want the things we want that get us through the day. Let me stop there. I don’t want to talk about “us.” I’m not sure I have the energy. I really only want to confess, and in doing so only then can anyone of “us” take something from this. I want to “hold out the word of life,” as Paul had it (Philippians 2:16).
Suffering is hard. I suppose that’s a no-brainer. But I mean it. After awhile, you wear out. I know this because eventually, and usually unconsciously, I water down my desires. I dilute them. I dumb them down. Why? Because I do not have in this life all that I want, all that I am made for. I am aiming toward it. I am growing toward it. I am increasing in my capacity for it. But I do not yet have it. And so I suffer. Greatly. Like Jesus.
“There are only three kinds of people,” wrote Blaise Pascal. I love the sentences that begin like that. They’re normally cheesy. Maybe my favorite is the one that goes, “There are only two kinds of people in this world. Those who believe there are only two kinds of people in this world, and those who don’t.” But in this one, Pascal perhaps got it right. He said, “There are only three kinds of people. Those who seek God and have found him. These are both happy and wise. Those who seek God and have not found him. These are unhappy and wise. And those that neither seek God nor have found him. They are neither happy nor wise.” I told this to a friend, and he said, “Perhaps there should be a fourth category, for those who seek God and have found him but remain hungry still.” I agree, but I think that’s implied in the first. We seek, we find, and our pangs of longing only grow. It is like the saints. As they grow in holiness, they realize all the more how unholy they are.
I think we need to have instruction on what to do with this pain so that we can live in it well, because only in living in it and dealing well with it will be know the fellowship of walking in it with Jesus. I won’t go so far as to say that only by suffering will we know Jesus, but certainly Jesus was only able to endure the call on his life by looking forward, with deep joy, for what awaited him. We must do the same. We must anticipate what awaits us in Christ. But here’s the rub: we can only do that if we know we are enjoying Jesus in the here and now as we go. Otherwise, we dumb down our desires and quell our thirst, or else sate it with something less than the Living Water (see John 4:1-26). What are we after? Only if we are after Christ will we find him. That’s the way the Kingdom works, apparently. Our Lord told us that if we are after anything other than Christ, even Christ and something, then we will not see God (Matthew 5:8).
