The Other Side of Suffering
Scripture: Romans 5
Why Can’t We Just Skip This Part?
Most of us have experienced a season we wished we could simply skip. Whether we are facing illness, disappointment, grief, uncertainty, or a broken relationship, we naturally want to fast-forward to the part where everything feels peaceful again.
We want the light at the end of the tunnel without having to walk through the darkness. We want the still waters without first passing through the valley.
I know I do.
Yet faith does not usually allow us to bypass the difficult parts of life. Instead, God promises to remain with us as we move through them.
Even People of Great Faith Were Afraid
Last week, we followed Jacob as he fled from his brother after deception had fractured his family. God met Jacob in the wilderness and renewed the covenant, promising to remain with him and bless future generations.
Even after receiving that promise, Jacob was still afraid that Esau would kill him. God’s assurance did not instantly remove his fear.
Mary experienced something similar. Before Jesus was born, she sang about the extraordinary work God would accomplish through her son. She believed he would challenge injustice, lift up the vulnerable, and fulfill God’s promises to Israel.
Years later, when Jesus’ ministry angered religious and political leaders, Mary tried to bring him home. She understood his calling, but she was also his mother. She wanted to protect him from suffering.
Faith does not make us immune to fear. Even those closest to God struggled when people they loved faced danger.
Good Can Come From Hardship
The Apostle Paul understood suffering better than most. He endured beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, rejection, and a mysterious condition he described as a “thorn in the flesh.”
Paul prayed for God to remove that thorn. Yet over time, he came to understand that it reminded him to remain humble and dependent upon God.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. I am cautious about suggesting that Paul believed suffering itself was good.
Rather, Paul believed that good can come from suffering.
Hardship can deepen our compassion, strengthen our faith, and remind us how much we need one another. God does not waste the difficult seasons of our lives.
We Sharpen One Another
The Book of Proverbs says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another.” That wisdom reminds us that faith was never meant to be practiced alone.
When one person becomes weary, another offers encouragement. When someone loses hope, another recalls God’s promises. When life becomes overwhelming, we can become the hands and feet of Christ for one another.
Our relationships help shape us. Through prayer, conversation, encouragement, and honest support, we become stronger together than we could ever become alone.
This is one of God’s greatest gifts to us: a family of faith.
Pain Before the Gain
The prayer commonly attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi begins by naming some of life’s most painful realities: hatred, injury, doubt, despair, darkness, and sadness.
The prayer does not ask us to ignore those realities. It asks God to help us enter them differently by bringing love where there is hatred, forgiveness where there is injury, faith where there is doubt, and hope where there is despair.
Only then does the prayer describe the gain:
It is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Growth often requires stretching. Healing takes time, and joy frequently follows perseverance rather than preceding it.
The Hope Waiting Ahead
Paul viewed life as a time for exercising our faith and learning to trust God’s promises. Every challenge can become another opportunity to rely on the covenant that declares God is always with us.
We do this together. We pray together, encourage one another, and remain spiritually grounded when the road becomes difficult. There will be moments of hurt and uncertainty, but we do not lose sight of the future God has promised.
Here at Grosse Pointe Congregational Church, we are more than people who happen to worship in the same room. In Jesus Christ, we are united as a family. We grow together, care for one another, and trust the Holy Spirit to guide us through every season.
Christ meets us in our despair and leads us toward hope. Christ brings peace to anxious hearts and healing to wounded lives.
Pain does not have the final word.
As we continue following the story of Jacob and Esau, we will discover that God was already preparing a future neither brother could yet see. The same is true for us. Even while we are walking through a difficult chapter, God is still working beyond what we can see.
Our future joy may not yet be visible, but God is already leading us toward it.
Reflection
Where has God brought growth, connection, or hope through a season you never would have chosen?
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