Session 9: Suffering Well Part 2

In this session, we conclude our talk on suffering well. 

7 Steps to Biblical Well-Being

1.     Ask God for Help: Don't be anxious about anything but pray and present your request to God (Philippians 4:4-7).

2.     Praise and Worship: Praise and Worship changes ones focus from the problems faced to the only one that can help and deliver.  Allow and let music help you cope with things in life. Create a playlist that focuses on God or songs that uplift you and give you hope. 

3.     Sense of Call: God desires all of us to know Him and make Him known. Don't ever have a time in your life when you're not sure if God called you to do it. Either God has called you or he hasn't.  Knowing the Call of God on your life has the power to keep you through ANY and ALL Trauma or Suffering. 

4.     Working with God: Together, you can truly do all things through the strength of God. He will arm and strengthen you as you fight through the trauma and suffering so you can encounter and have deliverance (Philippians 4:10-13).

5.     Lamenting and Venting: God invites us to vocally speak our frustration to the Him (Like King David throughout the book of Psalms). Believers can feel betrayed by God and God allows people to blame Him for their suffering. This doesn't make Him angry, because He’s big and gracious enough to take it. 

6.     Suffering: Suffering builds Character and in the midst of the Trauma, remember to trust that God walks with you through it. God employs suffering in a variety of ways. It's also the key to discipleship and molds the identity and mind of a person. Suffering makes you relatable to Christ and places you in a position to get completely dependent on God realizing his strength and power is truly more than enough. It may hurt you to watch your loved ones encounter suffering, but the reality is they need to encounter suffering too in order to get dependent on God and learn from their situation.  We often have expectations of God that were never even Biblical. We like to have our own plan and when God doesn’t bless it, we get upset with Him. God is sovereign and He loves us. Faith holds true to that. 

7.     Assistance from Friends and Family: Suffering will take a team of people to help move others forward through their pain. Realize the people you open up to need to know how to help you cope.  They can often help by placing themselves in danger and fight when the person has no strength. There is power, freedom, connection and protection in the Body of Christ and Believers. 

There is a Biblical way to cope and if you do those principles well, you will thrive, and God will mend every crack you have making you better than before. To overcome suffering, you have to be able to provide people or receive an element of Hope. If there's no element of Hope attached to it, there won't be any progress. The loss of meaning is the doorway to death.  Remember to be anchored in who God is and that He sovereignly rises above human agenda. Suffering is not wasted in the divine agenda of our maker. 

Jesus also encountered suffering (Mathew 26:36-46 and Luke 22:42-44). Let that serve as a reminder that no one is immune to it. In fact, Jesus promises that we will have many trials and tribulations of many kind (John 16:33). Suffering is a catalyst that produces change in every area of our life. 

Psalm 23 and Psalm 91 are great chapters to read and use as a prayer through suffering. Be encouraged and steward your suffering well.