Rejoice in your suffering and troubles
Know that looking for the positives in bad times will grow your bond with God
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Has anyone ever heard of someone who was really happy about the suffering and trials they were going through?
I suspect that most of us would answer with an emphatic “no.”
None of us is willing to say: “Boy, God, this is great. I really enjoy suffering and trouble and problems — just keep pouring it on, God, I love it!”
Yet, when we read these opening verses of Paul’s in Romans 5, we have to wonder if that was not what he was saying. Of course, when we review Paul’s background, we realize what he went through and know that he was not enjoying this suffering.
Here was a man who was not pleased with himself. A man who knew that he had given in to temptation more than he should have. Here was a man who asked of God to be relieved of the “thorn in his side” (whatever that was) three times — unsuccessfully. Here was a man who went through shipwrecks, mob scenes, imprisonment and house arrest, yet he can say, “We rejoice in our sufferings.” My study Bible uses the word “sufferings,” some other Bibles calls it “troubles.” We also might call it trial, affliction, or trouble; but, most accurately, it would be translated “pressure.” That’s a word we hear a lot today. The pressure could be in any aspect of our lives — all kinds of things press in on people. The pressure of want and need and difficult circumstances — sorrow, sickness, persecution, unpopularity and loneliness.
“In 1896, Glasgow University conferred on David Livingstone the degree of Doctor of Laws. As Dr. Livingstone rose to speak, he was received in respectful silence. He was gaunt and haggard as a result of hardships in tropical Africa. His left arm, crushed by a lion, hung helplessly at his side as he announced his resolve to return to Africa, without misgiving and with great gladness.
He added, “Would you like me to tell you what supported me through all
the years of exile among a people whose language I could not understand, and whose attitude toward me was often uncertain and often hostile? It was this: Jesus said, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.’ On these words I staked everything, and they never failed!”
Paul says, rejoice in these things or glory or boast — the word has more of a positive flavor than a negative one; and I believe that Paul is saying, “don’t look for the negative things in a situation, rather, look for the positive things that can result from the pressures.”
The popular song could truly be a Christian theme song: “Don’t worry, be happy.”
Paul says that sufferings (or trials or pressure) produce endurance. Endurance also can be translated patience or perseverance. There is always a temptation to quit when life becomes difficult.
Believers, however, often realize that difficulties, instead of being a cause for quitting, can be the means of growing more deeply in Christ; and, when that happens, their attitudes toward life can be altered radically. This is not a passive thing, but, rather, an active trusting in Christ which helps one’s faith become stronger.
We must be careful in this, however. For sometimes, when pressured, it becomes a challenge to show our resolve and thus going it alone, leaving God on the sidelines.
A Korean Christian once said that when he and his friends were under great pressure from the communists, they used to say: “We are like nails, the harder you hit us, the deeper you drive us.”
This, my friends, is endurance — perseverance — which Paul goes on to say, produces character.
Finally, Paul says, the progression leads to hope which is something very special for the Christian. Christian hope is more than just a faint possibility of something that might happen. Christian hope is an expectation, a confidence, a trust that will not be disappointed. Christian hope is built on the knowledge that God keeps his word and will keep His promises if we accept those pressures which he allows to come our way.
As a result we will grow deeper and closer to Him, forging a better and stronger character because we know he is with us.
You know, when we discover the full meaning of Paul’s words on suffering here, and come to the hope promised us in Christ, then we begin to realize that indeed our trials and tribulations can be a cause for rejoicing.
We can praise God that He is trustworthy and that our sufferings do produce endurance which produces character which produces hope. And each thing we struggle with prepares us for the greater things which lie ahead; and we can rejoice in the Hope that is with us.