No one needs to seek suffering, and no one needs to feel threatened by the possibility of it, but God did promise us conflict, sweat and tears from Eden onwards. We are hardly going to miss out. We try to, of course, but only do ourselves harm in the process. If we do what God tells us to do, that is, love, we will encounter suffering. I wonder if much of our modern living is not so much pursuit of happiness as it is avoidance of suffering, and, of course, avoidance of reality in the process. We often hear the cry that this or that person doesn't deserve what is happening to them, but a Christian comes at this quite differently.
Paul says we rejoice in our sufferings; not because of them, of course, but because of what happens in the midst of them—things like patience, character and hope. The key to this is that we have been justified. That is, we have a zero threat of God's wrath! We deserved just that, but instead, have encountered the naked love of God; found ourselves reconciled to him through Christ when we were living as enemies. We say, 'How can this be!' Then, we discover that when suffering comes our way, it can be a time of preparation for glory because we are being sustained by love—love, of course, that is commended to us in Christ dying for us. And then, lots of good things happen in the midst of all this—times of refreshing in the midst of the difficulties. |
