Suffer and Do Not Sin

Carrying the weight of our unmet desire for children has been one of the most painful and prolonged trials my husband and I have ever walked through. We’ve grieved profoundly. We’ve endeavored to reconcile what we know to be true about God’s goodness with the pain we feel. We’ve wrestled with why our good Father continues to withhold the good gift of children from us, and we’ve mourned the death of what we thought life would look like at this point in our lives. Our suffering has stretched us. It has caused us to cling to Christ. It has brought us a deeper awareness of our dependency on God and dismantled the illusion of control we once thought we had over our lives.

But suffering also has brought a particular array of temptations to sin, and I have often succumbed. Consumed with sorrow, I have at times been blind to God's goodness and given in to grumbling instead of gratitude. I have failed to rejoice with brothers and sisters who are rejoicing at the news that they are expecting or have received an adoption placement. I have set up camp in self-pity. Jealousy and even contempt toward those for whom adding children to their family has been easy has at times taken root in my heart. On occasion, I have grown bitter towards God and others and made having children an idol.

What scares me is that often I didn’t recognize my sin until I was knee-deep in it. And when I did, I usually felt that it was justified because I was in pain. Like Paul, I have to confess, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24).

Suffering is no excuse to sin, and we cannot let our guard down when we are hurting. We must be vigilant, alert to the host of temptations lurking beneath our grief and distress.

Enticing Job to sin was Satan’s motive for requesting permission to afflict him. Sure, Job was a “blameless and upright” man who “feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). But Job was a blessed man who had sons, daughters, livestock, and many servants. His life was easy. Satan knew what we often forget—there are temptations we will face in suffering that we might never encounter in times of ease and comfort (Job1:9–11). If all of Job’s blessings were stripped away, would he still fear God and turn from evil? Would we? Satan hoped that Job’s suffering would lead him to sin. In the same way, our enemy will attempt to capitalize on the suffering God ordains in our lives by tempting us to sin in our struggle. We must be alert. Our adversary will not take it easy on us when we are weak. In fact, our weakness is exactly where we should expect Satan to entice us to sin. He “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

Since Adam’s fall in the garden, life isn’t how it should be. Bodies hurt. People we love leave us. Good desires go unmet. Anxiety rages. Storms—literal and metaphorical—wreak havoc. As we plod through life in a world sick with sin, we undoubtedly will face trials that will shake us to our core. We were never meant to pretend we’re okay when we’re not, but we were also never meant to use our suffering as an excuse to sin. A tool that we can use to help us fight sin when we are suffering is the biblical practice of lament. According to pastor Mark Vroegop, “Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.” Lament brings an honest assessment of our difficult circumstances to the Lord, asking him to help us and trusting that he hears, cares, and will work all things for our good and his glory (Rom. 8:28).

Notice what lament is not. It is not excessive or exaggerated grumbling. It does not accuse God of being unjust. It is not a bid for pity, nor a cynical diatribe full of hopelessness, jealousy, and entitlement. Lament is also not merely vocalizing our distress. It carries grief to the foot of the cross and trusts that God knows what he’s doing. Often, poorly executed lament is the first domino to fall, crashing into a whole host of other sins like self-pity, bitterness, despondency, idolatry, discontentment, unbelief, etc. If we want to fight sin when we’re hurting, we must learn to do this well. Thankfully, there are myriad templates for us in Scripture that we can lean on for help.

For example, when we experienced a disrupted adoption, my husband and I were crushed. Psalm six gave words to our grief. “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long?” (Ps 6:2-3) Psalm six also gave us the reassurance we needed to keep trusting and keep praying. “The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer” (Ps 6:9)

We know that God could say the word and give us children. So the prolonged wait at times has felt cruel. Like Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations, we have said, “He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long” (Lam 3:2-3). However, through tears we also say, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him” (Lam 3:21-24)

The book of Job crescendos in chapters 38-41 with God’s answer to Job’s lament. He unleashes a deluge of rhetorical questions that emphasize his power, majesty, and sovereignty. God responds to Job’s pain by reminding him who he is. And in light of who God is, Job can’t help but respond in humility and worship (Job 42:1–6).

Pain can create spiritual amnesia. To avoid sinning in suffering, we need to be reminded of who God is. One of the ordinary means God has given us to fight sin and remember his character week in and week out is through gathering with the local church. There was a time during our wait for children when the last thing I wanted was to be in a church service where reminders of my grief were everywhere. Families with giggling children and pregnant bellies on the pew next to me were salt in a gaping wound. And yet, I needed the church. Hearing the preached Word, singing deep truths alongside my brothers and sisters, and rejoicing with them as they wept with me was what the Lord used to comfort me in my grief and uncover my sin. Gathering with the church every week helps us focus more on Christ, less on our pain, and stay alert to the dangers of sin. We need the family of God to comfort us in trials and help us fight against temptation.

The apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:21–24:

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

There is hope for us as suffering sinners because Jesus suffered and did not sin.

When Satan tempted him in the wilderness, he did not sin. When he was rejected and betrayed by those closest to him, he did not sin. When his anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane was so intense that he sweated drops of blood, he did not sin. When they mocked him and nailed him to the cross, he did not sin. When he breathed his last cry of lament, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he did not sin (Matt. 27:46). In his life, he did not sin. In his death, he did not sin. And he rose victoriously, ensuring that all who place their trust in him are forgiven of their sins and will one day be with him forever, where they will never sin and suffer again.

We can look to Christ as an example for how to suffer without sinning. For my husband and me, that has looked like refusing to negate the grief we feel while also refusing to allow it to consume us. Instead of allowing temptation to fester by constantly looking inward and focusing on what we lack, by God’s grace, he is teaching us to keep our gaze focused on Christ and all the riches of his grace that we possess in him.

But when we fail, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Christ, whose suffering purchased our salvation, advocates for us (1 John 2:1–2).

In this life, we will suffer deeply. But because of Jesus, the suffering servant, we can suffer with hope (Isa. 53). Our hope is not in whether or not someone ever calls us mom and dad someday. Our hope is in the one who adopted us into his family who we now call Father. We may or may not ever receive the call from the agency telling us that we are parents. But we have already received the call to become children of God. And because of God our Father, one day, sickness, death, and mourning will be no more. We will only know perfect joy in the presence of our Savior. All our tears will be wiped away, and the ransomed church of God will be saved to sin no more (Rev. 21:4).