God’s Answer to Suffering
God’s Answer to Suffering
Did you know that everyone, including you, will experience some kind of suffering in life? It might come in the form of a broken heart, a chronic condition, a terminal illness, or a dreaded disease. It might be an emotional rejection, or hurt from someone withholding love and acceptance, or a physical injury. God, who wrote the book on suffering, said in Job 5:7 (ESV), “…a man is born to trouble as surely as the sparks fly upward.” If you haven’t experienced suffering, be assured, you will.
If you have suffered, or are presently suffering, then you probably have asked that age-old question, “Why, GOD?” Paralyzed from the neck down from a diving accident at age 17, Joni Eareckson Tada, all these years later, said this: “Suffering forces us to make decisions about God that make our faith more muscular.” She went on to describe how suffering worked on her character, saying, “I was able to keep promises, say no to sloppy relationships, quit whining, and learn to be patient and more sensitive to others. Suffering made Heaven come alive, making me want to live better here on earth because greater things were coming in the future.” Does your suffering make heaven come alive for you?
The Apostle Peter must have had these things in mind when he answered that age-old question in 1 Peter 1:6-7, saying, “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith…may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Beloved, God allows suffering because He is more concerned with conforming you to the likeness of His Son than leaving you in your comfort zone. God is more interested in inward qualities than outward circumstances! If your faith is genuine, then rejoice in suffering, because it means becoming like Jesus in this life as you look forward to being with Jesus in the next life. Hallelujah!
This is Laine Wilder for Carry the Light Ministries, bringing you Insights From an Elder.
by Laine Wilder
Author of “Insights From an Elder” for
Carry the Light Ministries
