The Seminary of Suffering

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2
Corinthians 12:9)

This is God’s universal purpose for all Christian suffering: more contentment
in God and less satisfaction in self and the world. I have never heard anyone
say, “The really deep lessons of life have come through times of ease and
comfort.”

But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever
made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him has come
through suffering.”

The pearl of greatest price is the glory of Christ.

Thus, Paul stresses that in our sufferings the glory of Christ’s
all-sufficient grace is magnified. If we rely on him in our calamity and he
sustains our “rejoicing in hope,” then he is shown to be the all-satisfying
God of grace and strength that he is.

If we hold fast to him “when all around our soul gives way,” then we show that
he is more to be desired than all we have lost.

Christ said to the suffering apostle, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul responded to this: “Therefore I will
boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. 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 Corinthians 12:9–10).

So suffering clearly is designed by God not only as a way to wean Christians
off of self and onto grace, but also as a way to spotlight that grace and make
it shine. That is precisely what faith does; it magnifies Christ’s future
grace.