11 MINUTE READ

From Luke’s Journal January 2018 | Vol. 23 No. 1 | Pain & Faith

Talk given at the National CMDFA Conference on 14/7/17 by Murray Lean.
His Bible reading was 2 Corinthians 1:1-7.

Medicine and dentistry have always been professions that have attracted students with a bent towards altruism. I know I am speaking in generalisations, but I’m still idealistic enough to think that at least many medicine and dentistry graduates have a reasonable amount of compassion for their patients – they genuinely do care, they want to alleviate suffering, they do have empathy for their patients. And this is particularly so among Christian graduates. 

Over the ensuing years some of these motivations can become blunted, but ‘caring’ remains an important aspect of our professions. Perhaps that’s one big reason why doctors and dentists are still among the most respected and trusted people by the general public. But I sense, and it’s only a gut feeling, that the personal caring dimension of what we do is being questioned in some quarters these days. The ‘art of medicine’ is being challenged and compromised by endless investigations, expensive machines, a media focus on horror stories, public discussion about waiting lists, Medicare rebates, and the economics of the health system.

As the world becomes less and less personal, the need for doctors and dentists who truly care and show compassion is as great as it has ever been. 

The question for us is: where does the Christian fit into this world of algorithms, Dr Google, robotic surgery and 3D printing of body parts?

• Does our faith make a difference?

• Do our patients notice anything different about us?

• Are we any different from our colleagues?

• Do we see ourselves as more than professionals?

These are important questions for us
to ask ourselves.

In these talks I am attempting to develop a Christian model of compassionate care, and this first session begins with the premise that compassion begins with a correct view of suffering. 

The book of 2 Corinthians is the most personally revealing letter apostle Paul wrote, and in it he gives us a peek into his innermost thoughts and feelings. He suffered much in the course of his gospel ministry, and had a very painful relationship with the Corinthian church. So it is with a real sense of his own weakness and vulnerability that he writes to the Corinthians. We see a very human side of Paul come through repeatedly in this letter. 

This is the letter where he lists his sufferings (2 Cor 11:23-30) and talks about his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7-10). You can’t help feeling sorry for him as you read this letter. Yet what Paul is essentially saying is that weakness and a healthy sense of our own vulnerability is actually the way God intends it to be in those whom He wants to use in Christian service. The ‘Messiah complex’ has no place in the self-identity of the Christian doctor or dentist! It doesn’t matter what our patients say about us or what pedestals they might put us on, we must not play along with them and try to project an image of superiority. 

Paul can help us a lot in this regard, as we see in our passage 2 Corinthians 1:1-7. He immediately launches into the subject of ‘trouble’ (NIV) or ‘affliction’ (ESV). Literally the Greek word means ‘pressure’, which summarises the whole spectrum of life’s difficulties. In these few verses ‘comfort’ is mentioned ten times, ‘trouble’ three times and ‘suffering’ four times. Directly or indirectly, the pain and struggle of life are alluded to seventeen times in the space of five verses! This raises for us the whole paradox of suffering.

The paradox of suffering a pain-free life?

Most people in the western world these days, including many Christians, don’t know what to make of suffering. People expect to live a pain-free life, and doctors and dentists are the deliverers of this life. Even in some Christian circles we are being told that we should expect this pain-free life. We should be able to have Revelation 21:4 now (“no more death or mourning or crying or pain”). And by faith our prayers should be claiming these promises here and now. So somehow there is a ‘softness’ around us today which makes it hard for our patients (and perhaps even ourselves) to relate clearly to the troubles of life. Any pain is bad, even evil, and must be resisted and rejected, especially by the medical profession.

The reality of suffering

Yet the Bible is full of teaching on this subject if we only take the time to check it out. Until Christ returns, ‘trouble’ is going to be a normal part of our human experience. Because of the fall, Christians are not spared. We are called to a life of daily cross-bearing, whatever that may mean for each of us – but it doesn’t sound particularly comfortable.

Now I’m not suggesting for a moment that we become cold or stoic in the face of suffering, or that we abandon our core business of alleviating pain and saving lives. But we need to be clear that suffering is always going to be a part of this life and that as health professionals we are never going to completely win the battle over it, hard as we may try.

Positives of suffering

On the positive side, God wants to use trouble in our lives for His good purposes. We must not forget that. Pain and struggle are actually an important pathway to growth and service in the Christian life. And even when we feel as though we failed our patients, we must remember that God, the Great Physician, is still at work:

• Refining character (Rom 5:3-5)

• Teaching patience, humility and trust (2 Cor 12:7-10)

• Disciplining in love (Heb 12:4-13)

• Calling us to greater dependence on Himself

As CS Lewis famously said: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (The Problem of Pain)

And Richard Baxter: “Suffering so unbolts the door of the heart that the Word has easier entrance.” (The Saints Everlasting Rest)

Donald Carson commented in his book on suffering (How Long, O Lord?) that the danger for many Christians is that their theology of suffering is deficient.

• They are comfortable with God’s power in healing but struggle to see God’s power in someone who perseveres in the face of suffering

• They see sin and suffering as intrinsically evil but struggle to see how a sovereign God can use them for His loving purposes

• They have a theology of victory but without a theology of the cross

Can I urge you as Christian doctors and dentists to have a robust, biblical view of suffering? Don’t fear suffering or be embarrassed by it. Confront it with the resources God provides, both medical and spiritual, but let Him have the final word. Notice how Paul concluded his battle with his ‘thorn’: “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

This brings us to the role of God Himself in our sufferings.

The God of compassion and suffering (vv. 3-5)

You cannot read verses 3-5 and not be struck by the personal nature of God’s involvement with us in our troubles. This is not some remote deistic God who distances Himself from His creation. This is a God whose heart beats with love for His people. Psalm 103:13-14 put it like this: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for he knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust”. That’s us! Dust! But we’re very special to God.

“This is not some remote deistic God who distances Himself from His creation. This is a God whose heart beats with love for His people.”

Recently one of my friends drew my attention to the well-known verse: “Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). So often we emphasise the first half of that verse, but what a difference it makes when we grasp the fact that we have a God who deeply cares about us. He’s the ‘Father of compassion’ and the ‘God of all comfort’. And he wants to comfort us in the midst of our troubles in life.

Supremely he has demonstrated that in Christ:

• The One who became human so he could sympathise with us in our weaknesses (Heb 4:15)

• The One who wept at the grave of His friend Lazarus

• The One who wept as he looked out over Jerusalem knowing all that was going to happen to that city over the next 40 years

• The One who would suffer and die on a cross, bearing the sin of mankind

• The “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3)

• The One who suffered the wrath of God in my place and yours

We cannot share literally in the ‘sufferings of Christ’. Only the sinless Son of God could suffer, die, be rejected by the Father and descend into hell as the only acceptable atoning sacrifice. So what does it mean for us to ‘share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ’?

For some it could be a literal physical suffering, as it was for Paul himself, and is today for many in the persecuted church. But for most of us it could be other forms of suffering – physical, emotional or spiritual – that we encounter in the journey of life as faithful, cross-bearing disciples of Christ. 

The Christian experience involves our identification with Christ’s sufferings by faith in His death and resurrection (Gal 2:20). His sufferings result in our comfort as we receive forgiveness and new life in Him. And in turn we take up our cross and follow Him, whatever suffering and sacrifice that might entail (Phil 3:10). First and foremost, our comfort comes from our relationship with Christ. And it is the gospel that must be the source of our compassion toward others. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

The value of suffering (vv. 3-4, 6-7)

Some years ago John Piper wrote an article following his diagnosis with prostate cancer entitled ‘Don’t Waste Your Cancer!’ That seems to be the sort of thing Paul is writing here: “Don’t waste your suffering”. For all the tension that may have existed between himself and the Corinthian church, Paul wanted them to know that all the trouble and suffering he had been through had not hardened him against them but actually made him even more compassionate towards them.

His personal experience of God’s comfort had somehow tenderised his heart and enabled him to love them even more (see vv. 3-4 and 6-7). He was able to see how all he had been through, even the pain the Corinthians had caused him, was a positive thing. God was using Paul’s personal suffering to make him a more compassionate man through Christ. In fact, the implication is that he would be less effective in comforting others without having suffered!

“What troubles have you experienced in your life? Don’t waste them.”

What troubles have you experienced in your life? Don’t waste them. Let them make you more aware of God’s love for you, and better able to pass on His compassion to others.

Personal comment

My wife Debbie died nearly seven years ago from breast cancer. During her 10 year battle she was constantly under specialist care and spent many an hour in waiting rooms and at times hooked up to IV lines in Day Therapy Units surrounded by fellow patients. I was always amazed at the friends she made over the course of these visits. She’d keep in touch with them, ringing them and catching up to see how they were going. They were there at her funeral. Total strangers to me, but people who felt her practical, Christlike love. In a wonderful way she had learnt to “comfort those in trouble with the comfort she had received from God”(v.4). Her Christian faith had taken on a whole new legitimacy and power because she was able to share with others out of the comfort she experienced from God. Through Christ this comfort was very real to her. She actually looked forward to her appointments because of the opportunity they gave her. It became one of her ministries.

Final thoughts

Suffering is real. Whether our own suffering or the suffering of others, we cannot escape it. And for doctors and dentists it’s the space we have to live and work in every day. But so is the comfort of the gospel. And as Christians we have the privilege of entering into the pain of our patients and passing on the compassion and comfort of our God.

I realise that time is often limited and the needs of our patients are far greater than we are realistically able to meet. People have complicated lives and often we feel out of our depth in trying to help them. But by God’s grace there will be times during consultations, at the bedside, even in the dentist chair, when God opens a door for us to minister his love in a specific way – perhaps even a chance to share the gospel. As the Holy Spirit moves in us, so love… patience… kindness… gentleness… and compassion… will become apparent.

Sadly, our training emphasises the danger of ‘getting too close to our patients’. We are taught to maintain a level of emotional detachment. I think Paul would disagree. Obviously there is a need for common sense and wise judgement here, but I think he would be saying, don’t be afraid to let down your professional guard and be a real person. There is a real place for us to “weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15).

When I first moved out of full-time medicine into pastoral ministry nearly 30 years ago, it bothered me that I had difficulty showing emotion in certain pastoral situations, such as comforting a family at the bedside of someone who was dying. I didn’t want to be a cold detached pastor. I remember praying specifically about this at the time. Thankfully it’s not a problem these days. Sometimes it’s actually hard getting through a funeral!

• Draw on your own pain and disappointment, and experiences of suffering

• Reflect God’s comfort in these times

• Marvel regularly on the sufferings of Christ for you in the gospel

• Use your own experience to reach out in comforting others

And who knows how the Lord may use you in different situations to bring glory and draw people to Himself.

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