In 2006, as part of my degree program, I wrote a five-week small-group study on pain in the spiritual life. So far, I haven’t had any groups volunteer to work through it, though that’s not terribly surprising. Even if I had developed an aggressive marketing campaign or even really talked about it much, I suspect most people wouldn’t jump at the chance. Pain isn’t something we much like to dwell on unless we’re discussing triumphant overcoming of it. Some even use it as proof that God must not exist or cannot be good. We don’t want to get involved with pain; we’d rather avoid it.

If the research is correct, young adults of this era are particularly averse to struggle and pain, and many have been sheltered from much of it. That’s not to say that every millennial has lived a blissful life, and there has been no suffering for anyone. There is always a danger in attempting to describe an entire generation, as the picture of the group can never fully describe an individual, and some people will not fit the description at all. Tragedies and struggles like 9/11, the Columbine shootings, and Hurricane Katrina have all occurred while this generation has grown, and these have introduced many to great pain. The general trend, however, has been one of being hurt only from a distance, as most of these traumas only directly affected a portion of them while the rest were fairly removed from it. Meanwhile, many with “helicopter parents” were shielded from immediate suffering and potentially overindulged, growing up with high expectations of themselves and a sense that life would inevitably go well for them.U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, “The Millennial Generation: Research Review,” https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/reports/millennial-generation-research-review (access 1 March 2023.) They moved into adulthood believing that they would generally do well and things would go fairly smoothly.

The trouble is, life doesn’t always proceed the way we envision it. The higher our expectations—and millennials are typically very optimistic—the more blatant the disparity seems and the more trying the disappointment when expectations are unmet. Given the continually struggling economy in which American millennials find themselves, where work can be difficult to find and may not pay what they expect, the disparity may be particularly abrasive. Many believe that this generation will fare worse than their parents for the first time in American history. These young adults have not been prepared well for difficulty and pain, but they’re moving unavoidably into it.

The Ignatian tradition is sometimes summed up by the phrase, “God in all things,” and if this tradition is correct, then God is present even in pain and difficulty. Even Israel’s history demonstrates God at times positions difficulty in the lives of his people in order to accomplish his purposes. It is in actuality for our good and moves us, should we respond to it wisely, toward maturity and into stronger relationship with the Father. Learning to respond in ways that draw us forward rather than press us down may be one of the challenges of the millennial generation.

§

01.  Turning to God

CS. Lewis famously declared pain to be God’s “megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 91. While almost every other feeling can be dismissed or ignored when necessary, pain demands our attention. It is a call to wake up and attend to something that needs to be seen and dealt with. Oftentimes the call is to turn to others. The experience of suffering, even physical pain, is lessened in the presence of trusted and caring friends, family, and support. God regularly uses pain as a means of drawing us toward him as well, seeking to forge and strengthen our spiritual relationship and fix our eyes on “Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2, KJVScriptures marked (KJV) are from the King James Version of the Bible and is in the public domain in most of the world.).

Turning to others in the midst of suffering may not be difficult for millennials, the most connected generation that has ever been. Millennials are constantly checking in with one another both face to face and through texts, instant messages, and other social media platforms. They are also more connected to their family than previous generations, contacting parents frequently in college via phone and email, and returning to live with them after graduating. Such consistent connecting with people will make reaching out for others in times of crisis quite natural. Whether or not they naturally turn to God will likely depend on the habits they have already developed and the character of their faith, though as they refine the relational tenor of their relationship with Christ, they may easily adopt their pattern of turning to others into turning toward God.

The aspect of the social call of pain that millennials may have difficulty with, however, is that many are used to turning toward others for rescue. When things are particularly difficult, they expect that someone will eliminate the trial so life can return to normal. God, however, does not always pull us out of our struggles immediately or in the manner in which we expect. My friend Jessica, who is quite capable and skilled, has spent over a year trying to find work that fits her experience and abilities with no response, leaving her increasingly frustrated, despondent, and at a loss for why God is not acting on her behalf. But despite constant prayer, the struggle hasn’t gone away. God often leaves us in trial and suffering for reasons we don’t always understand. At times, they can form a crucible for change in our souls, building patience or dependence or stripping away the things that keep us from loving and being loved. Shepherds sometimes leave sheep who have fallen off ledges or into holes to wear themselves out before rescuing them so that they will cease struggling in their fear and will not potentially kick at the very person trying to help them. God may likewise leave us in our pain until we exhaust ourselves, so that we might stop struggling and striving and allow God to do his work in, around, and through us freely.See Psalm 46:10.

Another potential difficulty for the millennial generation is a temptation to turn against God when strife happens. Pain, fear, and anger are often tied together in our hearts, and when one arises, others may be drawn out, sometimes as a means of dealing with the initial feeling. When suffering occurs, anger can be invoked against the source, or if the source is unclear or the amount of suffering seems particularly egregious, one may turn one’s anger toward God. This may be particularly tempting for millennials as they look to God to rescue them, but he does not take away the pain. Since many are unused to being left in trouble, they may feel as if God is being unjust or uncaring when he does not immediately save them from it. Sometimes God employs suffering as a means of deepening trust in him, drawing out a willingness to believe that God is good and is accomplishing something, even in the midst of pain, but trust is difficult to muster when we expect God to do something different. Believing that the suffering ought to be ended, as they have experienced in the past, millennials may become angry or jaded toward God when he does not act, though his purpose may in actuality be opposite. God may be desiring to bring about patience and trust in his goodness rather than a sense of betrayal. Those unused to hurting may need to attend carefully to the character of their belief in the Father and how it matches with the reality of his love.

§

02.  Refining Fire

It may also be that God will leave us in the struggle because the struggle itself is producing something that only trial can accomplish. Scripture frequently uses the metaphor of heat and fire purifying metal as a means of depicting the process of making his people holy,See for example, Zechariah 13:9; Psalm 66:10; Malachi 3:2–3; et. al. affliction and suffering acting as harsh agents of refinement and sanctification. Paul, Peter, and James all speak of this process of suffering resulting in positive transformation and character directly as well.See Romans 5:3–5; 1 Peter 1:7; James 1:2–4. Midway through her twenties, Ashley began having health problems that doctors couldn’t make sense of. Her muscles ached constantly, and she seemed especially sensitive to electronics and temperature, which made it a constant struggle to manage daily life. It has become financially burdensome as medical bills rise, but this struggle has also brought out new virtues in her heart. She has found more patience with herself and with other people, learning to forgive and love more readily, and she has learned to depend on others, letting herself be vulnerable in a new way that creates loving relationship and community not just for her but for everyone around her. Just as in fire the impurities are burned away, in pain what is sinful or unnecessary may be eliminated.

Because many millennials have been protected from difficulties and rescued from them so often, however, when trials do come, they respond with more frequent anxiety and depression than previous generations. They are unused to the refining process and, if not saved from it quickly, can turn rapidly to despair. They have perhaps developed a sense that they are immune to struggle, having only rarely experienced suffering and pain, and they become surprised when they meet it. Given the consistency of God’s application of difficulty and trial as means of refining people, it is unlikely that millennials will be exempted from this process, and many have already experienced it, as those enduring anxiety and depression can attest. God will continue to draw them through the fire rather than removing them from it, and it will transform them if they are able to avoid despairing and allow God to choose how he will work in them.

It is also worth noting that millennials may not completely understand what it means to experience struggle or pain. To some extent, pain is a relative measure. We interpret the intensity of suffering based on the experience and length of what we have endured in the past. It is, of course, impossible to escape all suffering, and therefore everyone has experienced some form and amount, although those who have been largely protected from it may not understand the extent to which they may experience it in the future. We all feel like we know what it means to suffer because we have done so in the past, and we may even have seen others suffering, which we can sometimes take on as our own, believing that what we experienced vicariously through them has given us a sense of that kind of pain. So when God allows struggle and suffering to enter into our lives, we may be shocked at how difficult it actually is, having been lulled into believing that we understood it. Millennials may find it particularly surprising at how harsh pain can really be when they’ve been protected from so much of it.

§

03.  Exposing the Real Self

Recognizing how much you’ve experienced or been rescued from suffering. as well as understanding your emotional reactions and temptations toward pain, demonstrates the necessity of self-awareness in formation, but this, too, may be forged in the crucible. Paul Brand makes this point starkly by saying, “I hurt, therefore I am.”Philip Yancey and Paul Brand, The Gift of Pain: Why We Hurt and What We Can Do About It (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), 205. God uses pain from the very beginning of our lives to help us determine who we are and what we are not. That which experiences pain is me, and that which does not experience pain is not me. Those with severe leprosy have demonstrated how much this can be true when they cease to feel pain in a limb and stop caring for it. They no longer see it as a part of themselves; it is merely a tool or even an annoyance. Some individuals will also use pain as a means of countering a sense of nonbeing or deadness, hurting themselves in order to reassure themselves that they do feel and are real and present. Pain strengthens and defines their sense of self.

But God uses pain not only to help us define ourselves, but also to discover the truth of ourselves. We are surprisingly ignorant of who we are, having spent so much of our lives pretending to be something different in order to protect ourselves and please others. We tell ourselves that we are someone we aren’t, but suffering has the ability to tear down the façade to reveal the reality beneath. C. S. Lewis experienced this through the loss of his wife, describing his terrible grief as God striking down the fragile house of cards that was his understanding of himself and of reality. What he had constructed was false and only a facsimile of the truth, and so it was good and loving that it be destroyed, but it was nevertheless a terrible suffering.C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: Bantam Books, 1980), 42–44. The more we hold false truths about ourselves, the more we can cling to them in ways that cause us to miss what God seeks to do in us and through us. God loves us too much to let us hold on to lies and therefore brings or allows pain in order to open us up to who we have truly grown to become.

Millennials in America, however, have typically experienced two phenomena that could cause them to be resistant to this process. The first is that they were brought up in a culture that believed in the power of self-esteem, and many grew to believe themselves highly capable and special. While American students, for example, score low in academic skills against their international counterparts, they rank highest in self-confidence. Their views of themselves are highly optimistic, higher than their actual skill warranted. Millennials may then find it difficult to give up this optimistic view of themselves and acknowledge their limitations, weaknesses, and deficiencies and find that God is still for them.

The second phenomenon has come about due to the prevalence of technology in millennials’ lives. Social media, texting, and other means of presenting themselves allowed them to determine how the world would see them rather than discovering who they are and offering their real selves with vulnerability and humility. Many learned to create their own persona, frequently not complete or entirely accurate, and have become resistant to others telling them who they are. Instead of exploring who God has created them to be, they have learned to define their identity for themselves.

As God uses trials to open these young adults to the truth of themselves, their posture of self-esteem and habit of self-definition may make it difficult for them to accept the less desirable truths he seeks to bring out into the open or even the desirable ones that they are afraid of. God contemplated the character and identity of each person from before creation, knowing what they would become, and he is not surprised, frightened, or angry about what he has created. He, of course, desires for the sin in each of us to be put away, but he knows that it is there already, and he mercifully accepts who we are in even greater measure than we are able to ourselves. Millennials are used to being accepted, but this may be the case only for what they see as their positive qualities, making the exposure of the darker parts of their souls feel unsafe. Yet, through trial, God may continually ask them to reveal themselves for who they are, both to God and to themselves, and come to accept their faults, weaknesses, and sins.

The need for us to experience the truth of who we really are, as the saying goes, warts and all, and live out of this true self is because our relationships will only be truly loving if we give and receive from the real us. When Pastor Chris found himself divorced, he began to realize how much he was connecting with people only as a minister. He found himself in need of people to connect with personally, not so he could correct them, encourage them, or counsel them, but so they could care about him as friends. Without realizing it, he had become his role and walled off his need for real relationship, and the shock of the divorce was the tool God used to reveal the harsh truth. Many millennials are used to relating from a carefully crafted version of themselves, but this leaves other aspects of their hearts unknown and untouched by God’s and others’ care. They may not even realize parts of themselves are being neglected in relationship until an ache calls their attention to something being wrong. The difficulty of letting go of those created selves is enough that God must often employ harsh measures to break us of our grips. This is true of all of us, though millennials may have a more difficult time of it because of their habits; but this is one of the paths God most often uses to bring us into real relationship with him and others. The more our real self is open to bonding with another, the more we can be loved in the deeper places of our hearts and give back from a place of honesty, gratitude, and self-giving.

Not every millennial will fit these depictions. Cultural trends are merely that, trends. Each individual has their own habits, character, and relationship with God, and therefore generalities like “millennials” will never fully describe a person and may indeed misclassify them entirely. Many millennials have experienced great suffering and are therefore less shocked when it comes. Many respond to pain with humility and wisdom. Others have been more open to explore their real selves and have not sought to create a persona to display. But there are overall tendencies that describe generations, and like forest trees bowing in the wind, there is a tendency for these young adults to lean in a particular direction. As God exposes them to greater trial and difficulty without rescuing them quickly, he does so not out of anger or indifference, but in order to bring about something brighter and stronger in them. Perhaps, if millennials are optimistic, they might turn that optimism toward what they might become if they are willing to pass through the fire and allow God to bring them to the other side. The flame may burn them, but they will not be consumed, but rather purified.

§

04.  Recommended Resources

Recommended Scripture Passages
Genesis 50:1–26
John 15:2
Malachi 3:3
Matthew 28:20
Romans 5:3–5
James 1:2–4
Lamentations 3:19–33

Recommended Books

Lewis, C. S. A Grief Observed. New York: Bantam Books, 1980.

Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 2005.

Nouwen, Henri J. M. The Wounded Healer. New York: Image Books, 1972.

Yancey, Philip. Where Is God When It Hurts. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1977.

Yancey, Philip, and Dr. Paul Brand. The Gift of Pain: Why We Hurt and What We Can Do About It. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997.