Embrace the Suck
- Gary Ritchie
- Oct 21
- 3 min read
Can I be candid? I mean so candid that it may not sound very pastor-like? Embrace the Suck! I am not sure when I first heard the saying. Maybe it was when I was being pushed beyond my physical limit. Or it may have been a time that everything around me was falling apart and life was just so hard. To redeem myself, consider the verse of scripture in James 2:2 that may explain it more appropriately.
2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.
James is one of my favorite books of the Bible. The message is so plain and speaks to me in so many levels. Does anyone really understand this verse? The KJV says to count it all joy when trials come along. An opportunity for great joy, how can we do that? When we find ourselves with mounds and mounds of problems, an avalanche of financial challenges, or one thing breaking after another. We have all experienced these challenges, and if you have not, you are probably not very old.
So how do we “embrace the suck?” First of all, we must realize that every follower of Jesus is on the Master Potter’s Wheel. We are simply clay being shaped by the Potter’s hand. To be shaped into his likeness, the rough edges must be removed. That requires time and even pressure in the Potter’s hands. It does not always feel good but the end result is a thing of beauty. I am reminded of scripture that says God gives us “beauty for ashes.” At times, it is only until the refining fire is complete, do we emerge to show more of God’s glory in the latter than the former. I doubt any lady who has had her legs waxed went in thinking that experience would be fun. But she was not looking at the present, but the finished result.
James 2:3-4 explains why we should consider it an opportunity for great joy when the trials come.
3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
I am always so proud of people who are so disciplined to just set their mind to accomplishing a weight loss or fitness challenge. I am simply not that disciplined. I always want to take the easy route, the path of least resistance. James reminds us that the testing of our faith gives our endurance a chance to grow. I remember in school that some of my friends wanted to cheat on tests. Test preparation required too much work and it was easier to cheat than put sweat equity in being prepared on the day of the test. Appreciating the end result does not often pay off in the short term, but does on down the road. And when you cheat through life, most of the time, you are not learning much, and it catches up to you.
James 2:4 tells us that the endurance, if allowed to grow, will create a vessel that is mature and complete. The verse goes on to say that the one who has “embraced the suck” will lack nothing. Trusting the process is not easy but looking to the end result pays great dividends. For most of us, the greatest stories we have to tell others come from the trials that we have encountered and emerged an overcomer. In Revelation, we are reminded of the scripture, that “they overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.” My testimony is my story – the good and the bad. Stories of surviving the trials with faith on our side reminds and encourages others that if God will do that for one individual, it will be done for me as well.
The challenge for today is to realize that even though we may have graduated school years ago, the tests will continue. When we can come to grips with that fact that God is perfecting our faith and that requires opportunities for our faith to be tested, we will find that “embracing the suck” may be a little easier to bear. Choose your friends wisely! For they may very well be the bridge that helps you keep your sanity and keep from stepping off the deep end.
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Have a blessed day!
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