04/15/2026
A need to read post for those who are suffering! By Bishop Wright
I feel directed to post this again for someone today:
SUFFERING (2-17-15)
MY RESPONSE TO A COMMENT TO THE FOLLOWING POST INCLUDED HERE FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS:
MY FACEBOOK POST:
Important Life Lesson: Don't hold onto life's painful experiences, release them and be free. KEEP ONLY the lessons that they taught you!
Don't let pain rule you or cause you to be bound by it. Choose life! Choose freedom!
BUT be thankful for the lessons that pain has taught you. There are some things that can only be learned and gained through pain! Afterward, move on!
A pain-free life is a very unbalanced life.
Pain produces a perspective that is not able to be gained thru any other method.
A COMMENT ON FACEBOOK TO MY POST:
"Bro. Wright I agree with you in principle but sometimes pain seems to be my only companion. In many ways it's never let me down. I'll be honest with you, at times like this God seems for me to be a distant fantasy and if he does exist it's only to load more pain on me or judge me. I don't know if you will even read this, I live in Canada. There are times, like right now, that I think the best he could do for me would be to just take my life. As awful as that sounds it's the truth of the way I feel. it's easy for people outside of what I'm experiencing to offer me nice platitudes and even quote scriptures to me, and maybe they mean well. I've lived with anxiety, mental illness most of my life. Sometimes out of complete desperation I do things that I feel inside may not be pleasing to The Lord at those moments I really don't even care that much. I figure it's somewhat better than completely going over the edge."
MY RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT:
I don't believe in offering platitudes to people who are suffering, but I believe in and trust the love of my Father for each of us and I trust His Word. I am truly sorry that you are in such pain and despair. Please allow me to offer the following things. They are some of what God has given to me personally to help me in my times of deep despair:
FIRST: No place in the Bible did God ever promise us a life that is pain-free, problem-free, or pressure-free. In fact He DID promise us a life of "tribulation" (John 16:33 KJV) (Gk=literally, "pressure," figuratively, "trouble"). TROUBLE is guaranteed in this temporal life!
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye SHALL HAVE tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33 KJV). (Remember, JESUS spoke these words less than 24 hours before He was crucified for our sins!)
Often, our despair, frustration, disillusionment, etc.are products of un-Biblical expectations. We have no choice in whether or not trouble comes; our only choice is what our attitude is going to be towards God and the trouble.
Again, in John 16:33, Jesus gave us the choice to have peace "in Him." And, peace IS a choice. Me having the peace that Jesus' promised to give is not dependent on my outward circumstances, but on inward decisions. If I am only going to have peace when I "understand" the why and agree with what is happening to me, then I will NEVER have peace.
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27 KJV) The world's peace is dependent upon having no outward problems or trouble; the peace Jesus gives is INDEPENDENT of all external situations and trouble!
My wife battled breast cancer all of last year; we were given no assurances of her survival! BUT we chose to trust our Father and assured Him daily that we would accept whatever outcome He had chosen for us! NOT one time did we ask Him, "Why?" That is ONLY possible because we trusted His empowering grace. We could not have done that ourselves. There were many, many difficult days with total uncertainty, but we never gave up our peace, because we never gave up our trust!
SECOND: One of the greatest revelations that God has ever given me personally was, "This ain't heaven." This temporal life is not heaven and it was never promised to us that God would make it to be heaven.
Each of us is only required to trust the Father with whatever lot in life that is ours. I.e., a blind person has to make peace with being blind, a deaf person with being deaf, etc. EVERYONE of us has something in our lives that we did not choose and that God will not take away no matter how much we pray (see Paul's prayer in 2 Cor 12).
I trust the Father NOT to give me what I want, but to give me what is best for my soul and my salvation --- no matter how painful and difficult it may be to go through.
"And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:36-40 KJV)
THIRD: IF I choose to let them, my losses bring me to a knowledge of Jesus that nothing else can. In Phillipians 3, Paul learned that losing what was gain to him brought him closer to Jesus. The ONLY way he found peace over his losses was to understand this. Eventually, he not only made peace with what he had lost, but he made peace with what he could potentially lose. Even to the point of counting all of it as "dung" if losing it brought him close to Jesus. The ONLY way to have peace in the midst of our sorrow and disappointment is to look beyond the circumstances and see where we are going in Christ both here and in the hereafter (2 Cor 4). If we don't do this, we will never be able to receive comfort for our morning. The Lord's promise is:
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; TO COMFORT ALL WHO MOURN; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified." (Isaiah 61:1-3 KJV)
FOURTH: I will never have peace or comfort if I refuse to give up control of everything to Jesus! Worry, fear, anxiety, etc. are all products of me trying to maintain control of my circumstances in order to try and force the outcome to be according to MY WILL!
Peter said that we must cast ALL our cares upon Him because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:5-7). This is NOT a PLATITUDE. When our church auditorium collapsed in a snow storm in February of 2003, I had to learn to do this or give up and die - naturally and spiritually.
Literally, the Lord expects me to cast EVERY single care ("big" or "small") that I have upon Him moment by moment, day by day! Only by truly and literally casting each and every care upon Jesus (giving up control of the outcome of each and everyone of them to Him) was I able to survive spiritually and then ultimately prosper spiritually in spite of the fact that our building has not been rebuilt to this day!
For most of us, when we are going through prolonged trials, our biggest enemy is weariness. Weariness wants us to give up - quit. But, weariness is a product of prolonged frustration; frustration is a product of ongoing pressure. Yet, the pressure I live under is a product of me trying to make things go the way I think they should go and happen when I think they should happen. The only ultimate antidote to weariness is casting all my cares upon Him - giving up control of everything - to HIM!
FIFTH: One reason that people give up on God in their trials is that they are "testing" God's love and He is failing! Our attitude is: If You love me, change this, fix that! Sorry, God does not cave to that kind of manipulation. Jesus has ALREADY done ALL He needed to do to prove/demonstrate His love for us: HE DIED on the cross for our sins. To try and manipulate Him by giving Him ultimatums to meet to prove His love is actually proof of our own unbelief and lack of trust NOT of Him not loving us. Jesus loves us - POINT BLANK PERIOD! Regardless of what we have gone through, are currently going through, or could end up going through - Jesus loves us!
As a friend of mine said and continued to say after his house burned down on Christmas Day, 2003: "God is good, God is just, God is right! Amen!
My Friend, there is much more that could be written on this subject, but this is what I felt directed to write to you. Again, none of these things are PLATITUDES. These are things/answers that God gave me personally when I needed them most. Everything written here WORKS. I PRAY that you will allow them to work for you. In Jesus' name!
Grace, mercy, and peace from the Father be upon you, in Jesus' name!
(If you agree with this post and/or it has helped you, please don't just "like" it, please "share" it. Thanks!)
Bishop Chester M Wright, ThD
Antioch, The Apostolic Church
Arnold, Maryland
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