I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:26-39).

Mental Health, Compassion, and Respect for Suffering

As a psychotherapist in the waning years of a long career, I ponder what I learned in all those hours of listening to suffering people. One important lesson stands out. Compassion and respect for suffering – our own and that of others – lays the foundation for positive mental health. 

Obviously the therapist – or nurse, teacher, Stephen Minister or any other listening helper – must take this attitude. But I see great importance in the client, the sufferer, adopting it too. 

To clarify, let me switch roles and speak as the client, another part I have played. As a person who suffers, as we all must, my healing requires acceptance that I suffer. Furthermore, my counselor’s acceptance and respect as I suffer helps me accept myself and my emotional plight. In the eyes of my listener, I see that I have dignity even as I suffer. Perhaps other people will accept me too. Surely God does. After all, the cross of Christ, the visual focal point of our faith, leaves no denying that God suffers too and shares mine with me.

A negative corollary: If you fight, ignore, or shame yourself for suffering, you multiply your distress. A further corollary: If you fight, ignore, or shame the suffering of others, you multiply distress in the relationship. And often a refusal to have compassion and respect for your own suffering hardens your heart. You develop a cold and dismissive attitudes toward others.

Granted, therapist and patient must have some faith that they can alleviate suffering, or at least enough of it. Usually, caring and empathetic listening and collaborative insights and problem-solving lead to positive change. But paradoxically, that process picks up steam when we also accept the inevitability that we suffer in one way or the other. 

Faith and Self-Compassion

Compassion for ourselves is not mere self-indulgence. Rather, it entails a more realistic attitude toward ourselves. It befits any child beloved of God for whom Christ died. 

By the way, any scale that compares the weight of one persons’ suffering to another’s does not help. Others’ suffering from cancer or abuse or hunger does not invalidate your suffering from seemingly smaller misfortunes. My Ukrainian friend feels the terror of the bombs but would help and care for any privileged American hiker who stumbles and sprains an ankle.

God does not join us in our suffering only to address extreme cases. Any truly helpful listener understands that, whatever its relative weigh, your suffering is your suffering. And because it is yours, it matters. You and your suffering deserve respect. Accept that, even if it takes swallowing your pride.

In any case, recalling my career also prompts reflection on how faith and therapy relate to one another. I do not practice in explicitly Christian terms unless the client requests it, Yet, I experience all my work as inextricably bound to my faith. My prime motive stems from Matthew 25 and corroborating passages that teach me to expect and find Christ in encounters of care. Christ does not disappoint me. But Romans 8 bridges therapy and faith in another important way. It shows the crucial role of respect and compassion for suffering not only in therapy but in Christian life.

Romans 8 as Priceless Art

Wanda will vouch for the importance of Romans 8 for me. Just ask her after the postlude. She will confirm that her very peculiar husband spills an equally peculiar comment from time to time. “If my Bible was a house on fire, and I could only salvage a few chapters on the way out the door, I would surely grab Romans 8 and hold on tight!”

The writings of lyrical mystics delight me. How I love Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, Anglicans like John Donne and George Herbert, and moderns like Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Merton. But none sound so sublime as Paul in Romans 8. My spine tingles. Theologians slice and dice it to extract forensic premises from the poetry. But their pronouncements about predestination, justification, and – Father John, forgive me – even the Trinity seem bland and two dimensional to one who hears the music of this chapter. Try putting all that aside and take it in like a symphony. If you have an ear for that, you will agree that the author is no mere dogmatist, but an artist and mystic. 

Granted, Paul seems to stumble from heretofore dense prose into symphonic composition. The poetry emerges like the very birth toward which, he claims, we and all creation strain and groan. In the verses just preceding today’s text, he depicts our sufferings as participation in the suffering of all creation. 

Suffering and Praying With Creation

That story begins in Genesis. God responds to Adam’s sin by cursing the ground he must till, riddling it with rocks, stumps, and briars. Yet, sin, to Paul, means more than particular crimes and misdemeanors. It is a force, a backlash to God’s grace, rivaling but not eclipsing the Holy Spirit. Sin exposes us to futility, to meaninglessness. We feel it when we find our lives oriented around anything less than God. Forgetting our deep yearning for God, we ask with Peggy Lee, “Is this all there is?” Along with the lonely stars and nervous squirrels low on acorns, we groan. 

Yet, Paul implies this consolation: We do not suffer alone. We may think that nobody suffers like us in our peculiar circumstances. But all suffer. Even the creaking chair, eroding stone, and wilting flower. For all derive their being and energy from the Holy Spirit. So all participate in love and pine over the hiddenness of the Beloved.

In this long loneliness, we realize how cheap our words seem even as we pray. But more good news: Our very sighing and groaning is not ours alone. It issues to us and through us from the Holy Spirit ministering to us through the night. The sighs and groans through our lungs come from conversation among the persons of the Trinity.

Why Care?

But why seek and follow Christ when this longing goes on and on in a thankless milieu? When bad news trumpets in our faces all day long, for what good can a servant hope? Why do good when greed and cruelty reign in the capitals and marketplaces of so-called civilization? The Revised English Bible renders Paul’s answer, “In everything….he cooperates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purposes” (Romans 8:28, REB).

But can we find evidence for this as we wait? In the suffering itself, in the yearning of the lover for the unseen beloved. For all this suffering anticipates a birth and reunion face-to-face with Christ. We glimpse him now only through a glass darkly. But we know he lived among us, suffered with us, and still lives and helps us through the Spirit. Our mundane little service – whether patient listening, giving a casserole, dialoguing about community needs and solutions, providing skillful services more for care than recompense, greeting a stranger with a smile or whatever else — Christ uses in mysterious ways to restore creation as our intended home with him. 

Ultimate Hope

Hence, Paul’s musings on hope in the verses immediately preceding our text. “In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Paradoxically, we only learn saving hope as we wait with prayer and service for God at the heart of all suffering (Romans 8:24-25).

Romans 8 counters the graceless and all-too-common assumption that those who suffer must deserve it. Paul brings the symphony of Romans 8 to its coda with lyrical repetitions of the question, Who or what power can convict us and sentence us to ultimate suffering? Only God, but “God justifies” us, brings us into loving relationship with God. Or Christ? But he died for us, raised to God’s right hand, and intercedes for us. 

We may, indeed we must, express our suffering with lament. And remember, the essence of all suffering, whatever form it may take, however ordinary or extraordinary, is the sense of isolation from God in Christ. So to quote the climax of Romans 8 and, to me, all of scripture, Paul sings, 

In all these (sufferings) we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:37-39).

Friedrich Nietzsche, against whom I argued several sermons ago, nevertheless, left us with a helpful quotation: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Our why is the love of Christ who accompanies us faithfully even when we bear suffering senseless like his and forsakenness  palpable like his. For his faithfulness assures our life with him. By this truth, this why, we pray, we serve, we suffer, and we hope.

Related Posts

Praying With a Restless Cosmos (poem)

Stop Distress Over Distress: Self-Respect in a World of Suffering

Suffering Well During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Privilege and the Compassion Deficit

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4).

Photo by Anita Austvika on Unsplash. Public Domain.