4 Reasons for Hope in Suffering (10-Pack), (Paperback)

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 u