The Psychology of Suffering

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Nate Devlin. August 30, 2026. Romans 5:1-5.

Summary

What do you do when you get the news? We received news like that this week: a child who was with us in worship last Sunday was in a hospital within hours with a serious diagnosis. We have a choice. Will you meet the moment with fatalism, where you stop fighting the cards you were dealt, or with faith? When I sat with the family, I said: this is not a defeat; this is the moment of God’s victory in your life, by faith.

The big idea: suffering is a necessary consequence of faith in Jesus Christ. Some suffering is absolutely the result of sin and this world’s brokenness. Cancer is an evil, and we should say that. We should acknowledge that it is an evil. It is an enemy of God, at war with his purposes and plan in this world. It has been defeated on the cross, but it is not yet removed, and it will not be removed until the final judgment. Cancer is an injustice, and God will make it right. I had to accept that when my mentor in the faith at Geneva College, Dr. Byron Bitar, was stricken with cancer. I had always feared judgment until I realized judgment is a grace, because that evil cancer which took my friend’s life needs to be removed, and it will be. “Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). So where is cancer going? It is going under his feet, and it will be judged and removed. But suffering is also ordained by God as a school of discipleship, a sanctification that begins with faith and ends in glory.

First, faith is the starting block of our formation, and it is tied to suffering. Paul uses an ancient concept, a chain of virtue. Justified by faith, we have peace with God, and peace allows joy because of the hope of glory. Faith produces joy in our suffering. Joy is an unusually high degree of confidence in God, who is good and great; we may not feel it, but we can choose it. Suffering produces endurance; God wants durable Christians. Endurance produces character, gold in the soul. Character produces hope, unwavering confidence in God’s good future for you. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Second, do not be surprised by suffering. “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33; see 1 Peter 4:12-13). Third, God wants us to suffer not as victims but as victors. A Christian psychology of suffering has no room for defeat; there is a gold medal waiting at the end of every trial (1 Peter 1:6-7). We overcome by faith (1 John 5:4-5; 1 Corinthians 15:57).

A Christian psychology of suffering also resists temptations. First, reject the idea that your trial is not fair; enduring with joy begins with confessing, you are God and I am not; not my will but yours be done. Second, reject the idea that God is punishing you; that thought is from the pit of hell. Discipline is not pleasant, but it is not punishment; it is his love, a severe mercy, pursuing your perfection in Christ. Third, affirm that sin is a defeated enemy not yet removed; the created order groans, and trees fall on houses, as one fell on mine. Finally, suffering is not unique to you; God brings all his people into the furnace of Egypt. In Hannah Hurnard’s Hinds’ Feet on High Places, the Shepherd tells Much-Afraid that all his servants made this detour, and those who come down to the furnace go on as royal men and women. Though bread corn is bruised, no one threshes it forever, only until it is ready for use.

How do we find joy? If your suffering is caused by sin, name it and repent. And joy is not a feeling. We are far too influenced by a therapeutic culture that says we deserve to be happy. Joy is a choice, a virtue, a skill, an act of holy defiance against our circumstances. Joy rests not on how I feel but on who God is. Dr. Bitar was taken far too soon. He succumbed to the cancer, but he knew he was being transformed. When he could barely walk, he asked his son to hold him up, his hands over his son’s shoulders, to walk around the room, and he whispered into his son’s ear, I can feel God changing me. When he died, he said: never doubt the goodness of God, and keep the faith. He met suffering with faith. He wrote in A Christian Understanding of Ethics (page 167), which Parrhesian Press is republishing, that the purpose of Christ’s ministry was not and is not that humans be forgiven of their sins; it would be a nightmare to forgive humans and leave them with immoral characters. Forgiveness is only a means; the end is transformation. Christ died so that you could be transformed, and that happens through suffering. God loves that child. He is being sifted like wheat; so are we. We have a choice: to walk by faith and gather around this family in the years ahead. This is the moment of our victory. Let us walk by faith.

Key texts: Romans 5:1-5; 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 57; John 16:33; 1 Peter 4:12-13; 1 Peter 1:6-7; 1 John 5:4-5; Genesis 15:12, 17; Luke 22:31-32

For reflection

• When bad news arrives, which is your reflex, faith or fatalism, and what would meeting that moment with faith actually look like?
• Which of the three temptations (it is not fair; God is punishing me; this only happens to me) do you find hardest to reject, and what does Scripture say in reply?
• If joy is a choice and a skill rather than a feeling, what would practicing holy defiance look like in the hardship you are facing now?