God teaches the soul by pains and obstacles, not by ideas. — de Caussade 

[God] does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow. – Lamentations 3:33 NLT

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On April 16, 1985, at the age of 12, an Irish boy named Garvan Byrne died from a rare leukemia. 

Maybe you’ve seen this interview with him. It gets me every time. Here he is, twelve and trapped in the bent body of a five-year-old, talking about life and Christ like some ancient sage, his helium voice grounded with a tranquility most of us will never know. 

His mom tells how his disease caused him great pain. And I can’t help but think there’s a link there — between his suffering and sageness, his pain and presence. Not that one always leads to the other. Plenty of people beaten up by life grow only in bitterness, and when you hear some of their stories it’s hard to blame them. But any person, like Garvan, who has suffered much and grown sweeter, kinder, deeper, has a unique and unforced power to touch the heart.

Garvan’s case is unique, but each of us at some point and in some way will be given a cup of suffering we don’t want to drink. God doesn’t delight to give it. In fact, it seems that most suffering comes from the brokenness of the world. But God uses it to do something in us that cannot otherwise be done. 

Two people may encounter similar suffering. One becomes more saintly, the other a worse sinner. What makes the difference, in part, is how the suffering is faced and even embraced. 

Here, Christ is our Greatest Teacher by being the Greatest Student.

“Though he was God’s Son,
he learned trusting-obedience
by what he suffered,
just as we do.”
– Hebrews 5:8 MSG

That’s an incredible verse, really. Even Christ himself had to learn obedience through suffering. And in that learning, in drinking his Great Cup, he taught us how to drink our little cups.

See him in the garden in his final hour.

See him face down, praying, all sweat and distress.

He did not blame Judas.

He did not blame his Father.

He did not deny the difficulty.

He did not try to do it alone (though in the end, he did—Can’t you keep watch with me?)

He pleaded for another way. 

Finally, he rose, with resolution not resignation, in submission not self-pity.

His suffering became our salvation, not just from the power of sin and hell and death, but from meaningless suffering. His cross is our eternal meditation to make some sense of our suffering — or, if not that, to fill us with courage to face it. It endowed his words, like little Garvan’s words, with the power of lived experience. So that when Christ says, I am making all things new, when he says, I am with you always, or Hang in there… It’s believable.