“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor 3:17)
By Jennifer Lindner, MA, Certified Spiritual Director — Suffering is inevitable, but sometimes it can be made worse by another pervasive feeling: stuckness. The source of our suffering can cause us to feel heavy or worried or scared. But feeling stuck can lead us to feel even more anxiety or sadness. We might even feel emotionally or spiritually paralyzed. Suffering, it seems, steals our freedom; we cannot extricate ourselves from our circumstances, nor do we feel like we can choose how to think or move forward. What if, however, we could look at our suffering in a different way? What if we could encounter God in the stuckness? We know that wherever God is, so also is there freedom, and He wants us to find it.
What does it feel like when we’re stuck in our suffering? Maybe we ask, “How can this be happening?” Or we demand, “Why, Lord?” The Psalms reflect the hopelessness we feel. “I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart” (Ps 38:8). Fatigue and grief rob us of our ability to think and move freely. “My heart throbs, my strength fails me; and the light of my eyes — it also has gone from me” (Ps 38:10).
Turning to the Lord, though, even just enough to obtain a little space from our pain, we remember He is with us. “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Ps 94:19). In crying out to God, we trust He will help us. Like the Canaanite woman, we cry, “Lord, help me” (Matt 15:25), and we wait in hope for His answer, “[G]reat is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire” (15:28).
God’s closeness strengthens us, and our trust in Him loosens our spiritual paralysis. We might not feel entirely free, but we no longer feel alone. The Lord unlocks the doors to our hearts. “I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears” (Ps 34:4). He descends into our spiritual prisons and liberates us. “The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them” (Ps 34:7).
Ultimately, God seeks to encounter us in the midst of our suffering so He can set us free. Sometimes we cry out to Jesus like the blind men: “Have mercy on us, Son of David” (Matt 9:27). Other times, Jesus finds us, as when he confronts the long-suffering man at the Sheep Gate: “Do you want to be healed?” (Jn 5:6). God repeatedly invites us to understand how we are most free not apart from suffering, but rather when we discover He is our refuge in the storm of our pain. It is there, during our times of need, that God calls us closest to Himself. As Paul tells us, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” because God is Truth, and wherever there is Truth, there too will we find freedom.
Where might you be feeling stuck or paralyzed today? What is pressing on your heart right now? Where, with God’s help, could you notice the freedom He is inviting you to experience? Where is He asking you to look for it? Prayer? Quiet? Beauty? Laughter? Rest? Follow Him. He will meet you there.
