1. We Suffer Because We Live in a Fallen World
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. 2 Corinthians 4:7-8
You may be thinking, "Where is the comfort in knowing that we live in a fallen world?" It is comforting because it means that the painful things we deal with are not some bad accident, horrible luck, or indication of a massive failure of God's plan.
No place in Scripture treats the fact of our suffering with shock, surprise, frustration, or dismay. Rather, suffering is presented to us as the normal experience of everyone living between the fall of Adam and Eve and the future coming of Christ. God hasn't failed, his plan hasn't failed, and you and I haven't been abandoned. And because we know that God has a purpose for leaving us for a period of time in a terribly broken world, we can suffer but not be hauntingly perplexed or in constant despair, nor feel forsaken or that we're about to be destroyed. Hope for sufferers is rooted in the fact that they've not been singled out or forsaken but that what is painful has a purpose.
The picture in 2 Corinthians 4 is of cracked clay vessels, but you can see treasure shining through the cracks. We were created to be fragile, because God wants to accomplish something good through our fragility. He allows us to be cracked so we will finally get the fact that hope and security are never found in us but only in him. In order to accomplish this, he has to put us in situations where we can't make it on the basis of our strength and wisdom but instinctively reach out for help instead.
2. We Suffer Because God Uses It to Produce Good in Us
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4
Suffering in the hands of God is a powerful tool of personal growth and transformation.
James is saying that you have reason to rejoice in the middle of your travail because of how God is using your suffering to produce in you what you could never produce in yourself. Suffering in the hands of God is used to fill you up, to grow you up, and to complete God's work in you.
James is saying that the bad things you endure are a tool of a very good thing that God is doing in you and for you.
Think of the power in suffering to change us. Suffering has the power to destroy our self-reliance. Suffering has the power to lay waste to our idols. Suffering exposes the inadequacy of hooking our hope to the temporary treasures of the created world and positions our heart to hook our hope to the Creator in ways we've never done before.
God leaves us in this broken world because what it produces in us is way better than the comfortable life we all want.
3. Suffering Prepares Us for How God Will Use Us
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
God uses suffering to make us both willing and ready to be part of what he's doing in the lives of others.
God causes us to long for and experience his comfort so that we would be ready to be agents of his comfort in the lives of others. This means that our suffering has ministry in view. Your hardships qualify you to be part of the most wonderful and important work in the universe.
Suffering is meant not to drive us inside ourselves but to lead us out to offer to others the beautiful hope, comfort, joy, and security that God has given us.
God will give us stories to tell, stories of how God met us in our darkest moments of panic and doom. He gives us stories to tell about how he lifts us up, gives us hope, brings peace to our hearts, and meets our needs. We tell others our stories not to point to us but to point to God so that those to whom we minister will find their comfort in him too.
4. Suffering Teaches Us That This World Is Not Our Final Home
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
This passage is all about spiritual preparation. It's important to understand that this world isn't your final destination. When you live with a here-and-now mentality, you want this life to be as comfortable, predictable, pleasurable, successful, and enjoyable as it can be. But the Bible is very clear that this is not all we have. It's clear that what God is doing in the here and now is working to prepare us for the final destination.
We're all like pilgrims on a great spiritual journey, living in the uncomfortable world of tents and temporary locations. All the hardship and loss we face are designed by God to prepare us for our eternal home. God is working through hardship to pry open our hands and loosen our hearts from our tight grip on the here and now. He's working to release us from the hope that this present world will ever be the paradise that our hearts long for. He's employing suffering to produce in our hearts a deep and motivating longing for a much, much better home, the eternal home that's the promise of his grace to us all.
