1 Peter 4:13  "...but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing ....."


When I first read this verse, I didn't believe that being unemployed was anywhere near that same as the suffering of Christ. Whether by choice or because we are "downsized", being unemployed doesn't have the same sense of pain as does the pain that Jesus endured.

Or does it?

The tendency to think of suffering here is to think of the physical suffering, such as the pain His body was put through during His crucifixion. Surely "my suffering" is not like that.  But then I considered this: Why would Peter even mention it unless there existed the possibility of my suffering being similar in some way?  Surely, if it was intended only for someone who was enduring great physical pain, would it really even be possible ( or necessary ) to say the words "keep on rejoicing" ? 

So, in what other way could we "share the sufferings of Christ"?  What other sufferings are there ( Note that this is also plural, "sufferings" ) ?

Physical

This is obvious.  The pain of the beatings, scourging, and the entire crucifixion process would have been immense. Little else in the human experience can be compared to it.

Interpersonal

What about the rejection? The scorn? The faces turned against you when your cause is so right? The pulling away of your friends and followers as your circumstances force them away?

Mental & Spiritual

The anguish that drove Him to His knees in the garden of Gethsemane?  The intense grief and sorrow that overwhelmed Him to the point of blood mixed in His tears in His prayer to His heavenly Father? The mental, spiritual, and emotional pain that made Him cry out "Why has thou forsaken me? "

Is any of my suffering like that?

Yes.  When I "don't understand" and feel "abandoned" by God. Hoping for my circumstance to change, for "this cup to be taken from me". Those times when despair creeps in as I am forced to resolve myself to the fact that I am where I am and it can only change as God so wills it.

Jesus understood. And there, my suffering is like Christ's.

Now for the hard part....... keep on rejoicing.......