Without having any kind of statistics to back me up, my belief is that the closer you are to God, the more your suffering is due to obedience (e.g., tithing is a burden non-believers never have to face).

When I look around at the people in my life it seems that suffering is pretty common in both christians and non-christians. I’m just not sure I can say one group suffers more than another. I just know that the meaning of that suffering is different.

“Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1-5 KJV emphasis added).

A steward of the mysteries of God must remain faithful, no matter whether his house was burned down at random or out of persecution. A church-owned house I helped refurbish where inner-city missionaries could stay (mainly, I just tore up the old guts with a crowbar; others did the main work) burned down soon after it was completed. I don’t think someone from the ghetto torched it. It was an electrical problem. The house was dedicated to the Lord’s work. Yet “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” (James 3:5 KJV).

Two instances in my own life: I wanted to find a certain shelf to mount on my wall to display some things a friend had given me. I knew what kind of shelf I wanted, but I did not know where to find it. After I went to one store and did not find it, I complained to the Lord. Why do I need to waste my time when He knew where this thing was? At the next store, I found it. But I never mounted the thing on the wall. Lesson learned.

In the other instance, I entered three poems in a contest. As the days went by, I remembered how the young people from my current and past churches had won so many things and gotten so many honors. Why can’t I win anything? I complained to the Lord. Well, I won. The judge said my three poems surpassed everyone else’s. Yet he printed the one poem that mentioned nothing about the Gospel. I had written two very Biblical poems and then tossed in a good one I had already written because I did not feel like taking the time to write a third Biblical one. Lesson learned.

Read The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun. He preached the Gospel in China. He and his family suffered mightily for it. Paul also suffered mightily. When real persecution comes to America, it may make our lack of decent health care, housing, and other things seem like happy memories (if we are not rejoicing in our persecutions). Yun and his wife kept a normal family life as much as they could. Yun even admitted that some of his problems came on him because the Lord wanted him to take a break, and he would not.

Yes, I understand your essential question: Why is this happening to me? I don’t mean you are asking in the sense that you are crying like a spoiled child, “That’s not fair!” You ask in the same way I have asked before: “Why did this happen to me, Lord? All things work together for good for those who love You, but what was the point to this? Why am I supposed to learn from this???”

I struggle personally with the flavors of suffering.

I clearly understand suffering on account of the Gospel.

I clearly understand suffering because we live in a sinful world.

Yet I seem to be alone in my thinking because I draw distinctions between the two, whereas many Christians do not. I, however, don’t understand why some Christians lump them both together. If my house is burned down by an angry mob because they just want to randomly burn something, that’s quite different from the angry mob burning down my house because they hate Christ and anyone associated with Him. One result is misfortune and the other is a blessing for suffering for the name of Christ. Those seem, to me at least, to be starkly different kinds of suffering. The one just stinks, while the other should be welcome.