Everyone suffers, but some suffer poorly and some suffer well. The difference is not in the degree of suffering, because some suffer relatively little yet are miserable, while others suffer greatly yet are full of joy.

Consider the contrast between two men who suffered. Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, lived from 1489–1556. In 1553 Roman Catholic Queen Mary I arrested and later burned him at the stake for not renouncing his beliefs. The account of his martyrdom powerfully illustrates the degree of peace and joy one can have in the worst afflictions imaginable:

Soon an iron chain was brought, and put around Cranmer, fastening him to the stake. Then when the fagots had been piled up the sheriff ordered the fire to be brought. And when the wood was kindled, and the fire began to burn near him, he was seen by all who stood there, to stretch forth his right hand . . . and to hold it in the flames. There he held it so unflinchingly that all the people saw it burned, before his body was touched by the fire. So patient and steadfast was he in the midst of his extreme torment, that he uttered no cry, and seemed to move no more than the stake to which he was bound. And he stood there with eyes uplifted, often repeating the words of Stephen: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”[1]

Contrast this with the atheistic German philologist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote, “God is dead.” Sickly most of his life, he said, “It is not so much the suffering as the senselessness of it that is unendurable.”[2]

Nietzsche’s whole philosophy of nihilism taught that life was meaningless, and he lived accordingly. Having contracted syphilis in a brothel, his health wasted away as he feverishly penned his philosophical tirades against God. He eventually went mad and spent his last 12 years insane.

How could Thomas Cranmer suffer so well, even in the midst of the most extreme torment, while Nietzsche responded with bitterness, anger, despair, and eventually insanity? The answer is perspective.

Our perspective on suffering makes the difference. While Nietzsche had no vision of God and viewed suffering as “senseless,” Cranmer had a very high vision of God and rejoiced to suffer for His sake.

Most of us will probably never face either the martyr’s stake or 12 years of insanity after a lifetime of physical suffering. But we do experience the more commonplace afflictions Gary Thomas calls “fragments of frustration.”[3]

Fragments of frustration that daily afflict us can include financial pressures, job stresses, family conflicts, sickly bodies, or wayward children. Most of us will also probably know seasons of more intense suffering: cancer, the death of a loved one, broken relationships.

How will we respond? What will our perspective be? Will we view our afflictions as senseless, or will we embrace them as good gifts from a sovereign God? This is the perspective of both Scripture and the saints of history.

Scripture declares, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). And Puritan John Flavel said,

Oh what owe I to the file, and to the hammer, and to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! who has now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goes through his mill, and his oven, to be made bread for his own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace. It is glory in its infancy.^[4]

---