There are few things you can count on more in this life than taxes and suffering. Suffering follows us almost daily. But, if you desire joy, then embrace suffering. Learn to expect it and be prepared to embrace it.
In writing to the Roman Christians Paul wrote, “…we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (5:3-5). Paul gave up a life of ease, popularity, and fame to follow Christ. He knew what he was writing about.
Paul uses the word “tribulation,” from the word tribulum. Using an agricultural word that his readers would have understood, the tribulum was an instrument farmers used in harvest times. It was a wooden framework with bits of flint or metal affixed to the underside, hauled over the grain by an animal. It was used to separate the grain from the outer shell (chaff). Paul is visually describing the pain of suffering.
Paul, who had endured much suffering in his life—imprisonment, beatings, loneliness, and eventually beheading, guides us into the lessons we can learn from suffering.
Embracing Suffering Produces Endurance
Until you suffer, you can’t develop endurance. Endurance doesn’t come through victory, but hardship. My definition of endurance is being able to withstand adversity and hardship and not quit.
St. Patrick saw his physical slavery by Irish pirates as the release to inner liberation. His captors only controlled his outward, but God was using the suffering of slavery for divine recognition within his heart. Patrick discovered anam-cara. Anam is the Irish word for soul and cara means friend. Thus, meaning friend of the soul. This is one of the most beautiful concepts of Celtic Christian Culture. That God is the Friend of the soul. Prayer is the connection to Anam-cara.[i] It was the development of the Anam-cara that gave Patrick the endurance under the suffering of slavery. He wrote,
“But after I came to Ireland [as a slave at 16], it was then that I was made to shepherd the flocks day after day, so, as I did so, I would pray all the time, right through the day. More and more the love of God and fear of him grew strong within me. And as my faith grew, so the Spirit became more and more active, so that in a single day I would say as many as one hundred prayers.”[ii]
For Patrick, it was suffering that both gave him knowledge of God and built endurance that would make him the great missionary to Ireland that he became.
Embracing Suffering Produces Character
The character of Christ is never learned in having it all go our way. The character of Christ is etched into our life through obstacles we choose to face. It’s in learning to turn from our own flesh and selfish desires to the holiness and love of Christ that our character is transformed. It is not unlike the sculptor chiseling away at the raw stone to eventually form a beautiful statue that God chips away at our outer man to reveal the inner man, the character of Christ within.
Embracing Suffering Produces Hope
Hope is the evidence of something better to come. Paul, in his same letter to the Romans wrote, “All things work together for good” (8:28). It’s looking at the suffering of this life and still believing that good is going to eventually come. God has what we need to change. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, we can be transformed even in suffering.
You don’t have to be bankrupt, addicted, overweight, angry, and prideful. You can change! But hope must guide you. Hope is forged in conflict, suffering, and pain. Hope comes with faith in suffering. Will you place your faith in the hope of God’s eternal love flowing through your life?
Pastor Steve
[i] Confession of St. Patrick. Image Books, published by Doubleday, 1998. Page viii.
[ii] Ibid.
