Most times, suffering just doesn’t make sense. We struggle against it, we cry out to God, and still the suffering goes on. You have to ask yourself, what in the blazes is God up to?

Sometimes life doesn’t make sense; how other people treat us, why someone gets cancer. There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to those unfair things that happen.

I was chatting with a man recently who was reflecting on some of the tough times that he’d been through.

And he said, “You know, if I hadn’t been through those things, I wouldn’t be able to love my wife the way I do today.” It was this sense that on the one hand, he wouldn’t have wished those times on his worst enemy, but on the other, he wouldn’t swap them for the world. Because it was in those times that he learned the most important lessons of his life.

You see that so often. People travelling on difficult journeys and all the time there’s Jesus somewhere in that mix, drawing them closer, walking it with them, loving them through it.

We’re praying “God, get me out of this,” while all along, Jesus is trying to lead us through it. And there’s a reason for that.  

James 1:2-4 My brothers and sisters, you will have many kinds of trouble. But this gives you a reason to be very happy. You know that when your faith is tested, you learn to be patient in suffering. If you let that patience work in you, the end result will be good. You will be mature and complete. You will be all that God wants you to be.

Suffering is God’s opportunity to teach us life’s most important lessons. Suffering is our opportunity to learn them. That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.