The FIFA World Cup is all about soccer—and apparently suffering.
“This will be a World Cup where teams that do well will suffer. We want to be the team that can suffer the most.”
That’s what Michael Bradley, U.S. soccer team midfielder, said before the World Cup began.
Maybe that’s why it has taken so long for soccer to catch on as a sport in the US. We don’t like to suffer.
At least I don’t.
I like to think that I’m in control and can avoid most paths leading to pain or distress if I do things right.
Eat healthy. Exercise. Work hard. Love others. Be responsible. Follow a budget. Even practicing Christianity can be like taking a daily multi-vitamin that serves as a defense against suffering.
Then reality hits. I’m not in control after all. Suffering happens.
My first reaction to suffering is similar to that of a soccer player tripped in midfield. I want to run to the referee and plead for a yellow card. Foul play. It’s not fair. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I don’t deserve this.
My next reaction is to look for a quick fix. Surely there is a solution to this problem. Don’t we have answers for everything?
It’s easy to be so busy looking for an exit door to the painful predicament–whether physical or emotional–that I miss the spiritual transformation that can happen in the midst of it.
Richard Rohr, in Everything Belongs, says, “We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer.”
Unfortunately, sometimes we end up avoiding God in our attempt to avoid pain. “We avoid God, who works in the darkness-where we are not in control,” Richard Rohr.
Not only do we do this in our own lives, but it’s easy to do this in the lives of others. Sometimes it’s easier to provide a solution to someone’s suffering rather than help them find God amidst their suffering.
Now I definitely don’t want to go looking for suffering—it seems to find me easy enough. Nor do I want to stay in it longer than necessary. But I do want to be part of a team that can suffer, as Bradley said.
I want to remember that spiritual transformation happens in suffering. I don’t want to miss God in the process because I’m too busy blaming someone, looking for answers or just feeling sorry for myself.
Tomorrow Michael Bradley will be on the field with the rest of the U.S. Soccer team testing how much they can suffer in the World Cup. Not many of us will be tested in that kind of arena, but all of us, at some time, will encounter suffering.
Let’s learn to suffer well.
“…because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us…” Romans 5: 3-5
