There are many dangers that we face when we suffer. Perhaps the least recognized is how our suffering affects others. When we suffer, its possible that we can turn so far inward and downward away from the Lord that our example in suffering negatively affects the faith of others.
What are we saying about the Lord by the way we suffer?
Psalm 69 is a great script for pouring your heart out to the Lord in a difficult season. But it’s more than that. It contains instruction about how our suffering is not just about us, but about God’s reputation and others’ faith.
Much of the psalm reads just like what you would expect from a person who is in the throes of a desperate trial…
Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. (v1)
I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. (v3)
Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. (v16)
Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. (v17)
Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. (20)
Most of us can identify with this place: “I’m in terrible trouble. I’m in terrible pain. This is awful. Please help me.”
But one striking feature of this psalm is a plea in vv5-6:
O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.
Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord GOD of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.
Here is David’s concern that may be incredible to us: “Lord, help me to endure this trial so that others’ faith will not be harmed.”
You see, David understood what you and I should understand as well even though we are not kings of Israel—when we suffer, other believers are affected. They are affected by our response to suffering in at least a couple of ways.
First, when we suffer, we represent the body. The Bible does not recognize the individual with the same ferocity as does the Western mind. We belong to one another. As Paul writes, “we are members of one another” (Eph 4:25). When we fail to endure, that is, when we fail to trust Him in the midst of pain, that not only reflects poorly on Him and us, but it also reflects poorly on the rest of the body. This is the main concern of these verses in Psalm 69. David is saying, “Lord, let me not fail and bring shame upon those who trust in you.”
One of the main points of the book of Titus is that believers should live lives that commend the gospel. It’s a terribly destructive thing to share the gospel with our mouths and then deny it with our lives. This phenomenon exists not just in individuals, but in the body as a whole. For the cause of Christ to be harmed, it is not necessary for the same believers proclaiming Christ to be also living ungodly lives. All it takes is for any believer to live an ungodly life while any other believer is proclaiming Christ. We are one body.
In the same way, when we as a body proclaim a Christ who is enough to see us through the difficult struggles of life, and any one member deals with a trial as if He is not, the reputation of the whole body is called into question. We are members of one another.
Second, when we suffer, we either demonstrate or deny the validity of the faith and therefore encourage or discourage others in their trials. Consider those younger in the faith than you. They watch you as you suffer. If you run to false refuges in the heat of affliction, what conclusion might they make about the Lord? He is insufficient to help on the day of trouble. When their day of trouble comes, they may just follow your example. As David characterizes it, they’ll be disgraced and humiliated.
Even in our darkest hours, may the Lord keep at the front of our minds, “Love one another as I’ve loved you.” Remember that Jesus loved us in His hour of greatest affliction by thinking first and foremost of ways to safeguard our faith (John 13-16). We are capable of the same thing because the Spirit that empowered Him resides within us (John 3:34; 14:17). So let’s pray with David: Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me… Let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me.
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