Suffering

Many might say that a suffering church, or a suffering individual, is not blessed. Perhaps some may say, like Job's friends, that suffering comes because we must be doing something wrong. Scripture discusses many different examples of suffering. Jesus even gave the cause of one young man's blindness from birth, as not being any wrong that he or his parents committed, but as an opportunity for God to be glorified. It was then that Jesus healed him (Jn. 9:1-3). Even if we have only this one example as an exception, it puts to rest once and for all the dogma that people have earned their suffering by something wrong that they have done.
What possible blessing could suffering be in our lives? Suffering accomplishes a spiritual work in us that nothing else can accomplish. The work that is accomplished in us through suffering is compassion. There is absolutely no other way that a church, or an individual believer, can walk in the footsteps of Christ, or the fullness of ministry without that quality.
Compassion differs from sympathy, or even empathy. By its Hebrew and Greek meanings, compassion is formed in our deepest soul. The word is associated with the bowels, the deepest, innermost parts. It is not a surface expression of sentiment, but a flow that comes out of a deep wound in the gut. It isn't generated from a circumstance our minds can imagine, but from an experience.
Many of the works of the Father and the Son are works from the pool of compassion within Them. The Psalms describe the LORD as full of compassion:
"But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth...The LORD is gracious and full of compassion...slow to anger and great in mercy."  Ps. 86:15, 111:4, 145:8
The great work of the LORD in gathering the exiles of Israel and bringing them back to the land is a work accomplished out of His compassion (Deut. 30:3, Jer. 12:15).
The forgiveness of sin and iniquities comes out of God's compassion:
"But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them." Ps. 78:38
"He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea."  Mic. 7:19
Jesus repeatedly ministered miracles out of compassion:
"But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd."  Mt. 9:36
"And when Jesus went out, He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick."  Mt. 14:14
"Jesus called His disciples to Himself and said, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat..." Mt. 15:32
After feeling the compassion for this multitude above, Jesus miraculously fed over 4,000 men, plus the women and children that accompanied them.
In a parable (Mt. 18:23-35), Jesus teaches about a master who, out of compassion, forgives a servant's debt to him. The master then argues that this forgiven servant should then be able to forgive others' debts out of that same compassion that was shown to him. It is the argument of this master in Jesus' parable that not only is it worthy to have compassion, but also that it is an expected characteristic of compassion that it should also beget compassion, or multiply (see also 1 Jn. 3:16 ).
Jesus also cleansed leprosy, restored sight to the blind, cast out a legion of demons, and raised a woman's dead son out of His compassion (Mk. 1:41, Mt. 20:34 , Mk. 5:19 , Lk. 7:13 ).
There are examples in scripture of people who are forever recorded for the works that they accomplished out of compassion:
Pharaoh's daughter, full of compassion (Ex. 2:6), not only rescued a Hebrew slave's baby out of a river, but raised the child, Moses, as her own. It is an extraordinary work for a royal princess to adopt a slave as her son. Could the compassion she felt have been created by suffering the loss of a child of her own? We don't know that for sure, but there is no mention that she had other children.
A father received back his miserable, wayward son out of compassion (Lk. 15:20). Could this father's compassion have come from the deep wound created when his son demanded an early inheritance, left his father's house, and cut off all contact, until the father feared he was dead? (v. 24)
A Samaritan, feeling compassion (Lk. 10:33), went out of his way to minister to a robbed and wounded man, when others, who should have cared, just left him on the road. Perhaps the compassion that flowed from the Samaritan came from the wound of suffering ethnic and religious prejudice and hatred, as was felt towards Samaritans at the time.
Jesus' feet were washed and anointed by a weeping woman who had known the very worst circumstances in life, while the self-righteous looked on with scorn. She poured out upon Him from an alabaster box. It was in this type of box that unguents used for healing and soothing wounds and sores were kept. This is what our compassion is. Poured from our alabaster box, it heals and soothes others' wounds and sores. Jesus said that because she had ministered to Him out of a very great love, her many sins were forgiven her (Lk. 7:36-50).
As we can see in the examples above, compassion runs much more deeply than just a thought of sympathy, or words of consolation. Compassion acts.
The compassion of a church, led to its sacrificial giving (Heb. 10:34) to a suffering apostle. Did this compassionate church know from experience what it was like to suffer, and do without so much themselves?
The Apostles urged believers to have compassion, and condemned those who refused to minister it (1 Pet. 3:8, Jude 1:22, 1 Jn. 3:17).
We instinctively desire to escape from the painful experiences that are brought into our lives, but these very experiences produce the precious gold of compassion within us, and cause us to reach our greatest unity with God. 

Our Father has a heart of compassion.

"Alabaster Box"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq8VP9osGrg


*Artwork at the top of the page: "Suffering" by Paula Heffel