January 21, 2025

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Read: Colossians 1:1-14

This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it. Colossians 1:23b (CSB)

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I don’t like suffering. Not one little bit. 

I remember walking in the Austrian Alps when Hans Peter Royer, our director, passed by and asked how I was doing, I confessed that I was feeling a bit winded. He pinched my love handle as he speed-walked past me and said, “Ah, it makes the body rejoice.” 

Nope, not mine. My body was pooped. 

Exercise is intentionally making your body suffer. Now some of that makes sense. It does feel good to do a hike in the Alps (as I recall) especially coming back to home base, real beds, food that doesn’t have to be rehydrated, a real bed, a bathroom, a bed with a mattress, and a real bed. 

But some people are gluttons for punishment. They make their body suffer to the point of almost masochism. Who would willingly suffer like that? 

Paul. Paul would. He chained himself to the Gospel – literally (Phil 1:12) – and he suffered for it. He became a servant of that Gospel and then he suffered for it. Like a bodybuilder – only without the cool baby oil. 

I wonder if Paul was depressed about it from time to time. Depression comes when we start to loop and lose our ability to imagine a way out of a very difficult situation. You can be in a bad place, like really bad, and as long as you can see a way out – even if it’s completely unrealistic – you will make it. It’s when you can’t see a way out, you lose hope, that the walls close in and you die. 

I can’t imagine something as bad as chains. Chains suck worse than working out. But like the weirdos who work out, Paul chose chains. Sometimes our choices, even good ones, can be depressing. Ten years ago I watched as three children slowly slipped out of my grip. Thirty months we raised them and for three excruciating months I felt like my kids were dying in front of my eyes. And then they left – back to their birth parent – I haven’t seen them since. 

Sometimes the thought of going through that again is enough to crush my soul. And then there is the challenging behaviour we deal with. Behaviour that is not the fault of our kids – they were conceived, carried, and born under the stress of a parent’s struggle for survival. Sometimes, the obstacles put me in that loop… downward. 

I was telling my business coach about some of the challenges in our family the other day and he said something that kind of stopped me in my tracks, he said that Tara and I have chosen chaos. He meant it in the most noble sense. We talked about what part of the chaos is in our control and how to let go of what wasn’t. He’s not a believer but I’ll be darned if he didn’t sound a lot like Paul.

I didn’t realize that we had chosen chaos, I have certainly experienced it, and clearly, I know that we chose this life, but I have never realized that means we chose chaos. And we aren’t giving up. We are chained to it. Servants of chaos. We are willingly suffering. 

You are too. As you draw closer to Jesus and do the things He is asking you to do, you are willingly suffering. Maybe a bit more than last year, or a bit less, but as you serve the Suffering Servant, you will also share in His suffering – and you will understand why Paul would say that it is all worth it!

How is this possible? I know I make fun of athletes (or people pretending to be athletes) who push their bodies to the brink, but they do get something from it. Health, strength, recognition, and the high of endorphins. Their suffering results in positive effects. 

Paul knew that his suffering would also produce positive effects. Colossians 1:28–29 (CSB), “We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.”

See if you realize that your suffering alleviates suffering just a bit for someone else, then you become courageous and resilient; lose sight of that and you’re hooped. The exhaustion is just as real whether it’s for a good cause or a lost cause – even Paul asked for a few creature comforts to be sent while he was in prison – but the sense of purpose far outweighs the pain. 

One year to the day that our three kids left, a one-year-old arrived in our home. He was born a week and a year before they left our home. He’s eight now and adopted. 

I believe that our family is living the Gospel. It’s messy, loud, chaotic, exhausting, and right. You are living the Gospel too. It will come at a price but together let’s agree to keep doing it because it’s worth it. Two of my favourite verses say it like this, “I have become its servant, according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints… which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27 (CSB)