Can we really rejoice in suffering?

(This is the text of a devotion I gave to some fellow Christian workers this week. I am sharing it here with only a few minor tweaks.)

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.                     

Romans 5: 3-4  NLT

It’s my privilege to help us think about a couple of verses I don’t  particularly like but which have become very special to me in recent years. They are about rejoicing in difficulties.

When I am hurting, I don’t want to be told to rejoice. And I am certainly not going to tell anybody else I care about who is in the midst of despair ‘to rejoice’. The apostle Paul, however, told us that we can rejoice in problems and trials. And this is the passage that we have been asked to meditate on today. So here we are. 

Suffering and Buddhism

Buddhism has a lot to say about suffering. In fact, in many ways, Buddhism is all about the ‘why’ of suffering and ‘how to’ for avoiding it.

About 2 1/2 millennia ago, the one recognised as the first Buddha was motivated to meditate after witnessing suffering. He was protected from the harsh realities of life for a while, but it was impossible to completely avoid encountering things like illness, poverty and injustice. One particularly lengthy period of meditation culminated in what Buddhists call ‘enlightenment’.

And that, we are told, is how Buddhism began. Buddhism is primarily about how to avoid suffering. Avoiding attachment helps temporarily. The great hope of Buddhism is to eventually escape samsara, the cycle of suffering.

Suffering today

We all witness and experience suffering. Perhaps it relates to frustrations and disappointments in ministry. Maybe it is due to financial pressure or illness or isolation. Certainly covid and the restrictions imposed in an effort to limit its spread have created enormous difficulties, isolation and deep sadness for many. For people living from pay check to pay check and especially for those without some form of social security, the economic impact of covid has caused tremendous suffering.

How can we make sense of suffering? The passage we are looking at today even tells us to rejoice (or glory) in suffering. Is that even possible?

Suffering and faith in Christ

The Bible directly addresses the ‘why’ of suffering too, as well as touching on the ‘how to’ of dealing with it. In what the Bible terms as ‘the kingdom of light’, we are called not to avoid suffering but to actually embrace it. Suffering won’t last for eternity, but right now, we don’t run from it.

Suffering is part of the curse of sin, according to the Bible. The cost of dealing with it is exorbitant. Jesus, the ‘light of the world’, set us a powerful example of accepting suffering. We are called to follow his example.

What’s more, because of our hope in Jesus, we can even rejoice when we run into problems and trials. 

Hope is the key

How is it possible to rejoice in suffering? As today’s verses state, it is all because of the hope that we have – a confident hope of God’s glory in which we have a part through Jesus.

According to these verses, suffering actually serves to strengthen that hope. As Paul puts it: “And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because …” (it strengthens our hope) (Romans 5:2b-3a NIV ).

As an aside, let me mention that in the translation of the text given to me for this devotion, we are told to ‘rejoice’ when we encounter difficulties. That is in the New Living Translation. In the New International Version, quoted in the paragraph above, we are told to ‘glory’ in our sufferings.

The word used in the original language – καυχώμεθα (kauchōmetha) – contains aspects of both, as well as an element of boasting. Personally, as I face trouble, I prefer to think about how I can ‘glory’ in it rather than to ‘rejoice’ in it. Nevertheless, I will stick to the translation that I was given. It’s not incorrect. It just illustrates the limits of translation.

However you translate it, we don’t rejoice or glory or boast in the specifics of the stressors in our lives. We rejoice and glory and boast in the hope that we have.

Paul put it like this:

Problems and trials –> endurance –> strength of character –> our confident hope of salvation is strengthened.

Based on Romans 2:3-4

A theme verse

Let me share with you a personal application of this passage from 2015. I did something very brave and perhaps somewhat stupid at the start of that year.

I asked people to pray this passage specifically for me during what I was expecting would be a rough few months. I was particularly taken by wording of Eugene Peterson from ‘The Message’ where he says that suffering helps us ‘develop passionate patience’.

“Please pray that God will ‘develop passionate patience’ in me,” I wrote to praying people. It was a shocker of a year. In 2015, I played a part in dealing with major conflict. Then there was a cancer diagnosis, surgery and further treatment. I had an international move, which also entailed losing or changing roles and moving far from good friends. Friends here moved too. I appreciated those prayers for ‘passionate patience’ but by the end of the year, I was saying, “ENOUGH!”

Did I rejoice in the difficulties? Um … not exactly … but I was way more calm than I would have been without what Paul calls here ‘the confident hope of salvation’. 

Let me share two more examples … Biblical examples this time … of how godly people dealt with problems and trials. The first is Paul, who wrote this passage, and the second is Abraham, whom Paul wrote about in the chapter immediately preceding these verses. 

Paul

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials…,” wrote Paul. He had real credibility when he wrote these words because he knew what it meant to suffer.

You are familiar, I am sure, with Paul’s boasts about his weaknesses in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12. He boasted about working so hard that he was frequently absolutely exhausted. Then there was the hunger and thirst he endured, let alone imprisonment, flogging, stoning, three shipwrecks, and being in danger from people he perceived as threats as well as those he had thought were friends. And then, of course, he had that ‘thorn in the flesh’, a messenger of Satan sent by God to keep him humble … whatever that was.

Mind you, his suffering had a point … it was part of his co-operation with God in his kingdom work. It seems easier to rejoice in suffering when the suffering has purpose. 

Abraham

What about when there seems to be no purpose to our suffering? What about when our suffering is actually more about inactivity – waiting, waiting, waiting and waiting some more? Abraham knew what that was like. He waited, sometimes impatiently, but he waited for that promised son. Paul described it like this:

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations…. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Romans 4:18a, 19-21 NIV

This story of Abraham’s hope and patience in the waiting is not just a piece of history. It has direct relevance for us. Paul went on to explain how.

This is why it was credited to him as righteousness. The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness – for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

Romans 4:22-24 NIV

That passage leads directly into the ‘therefore’ which begins Romans 5, and comes immediately prior to the verses that we have been asked to meditate on today. “Therefore … we have been justified … we have peace with God … we have access into the grace of God … and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings….”.

It’s all about hope.

Sarah

Imagine Abraham … waiting and wondering … wondering and waiting. As a woman, however, I identify more closely with Sarah.

Imagine Sarah’s crushing disappointment month after month until her monthly cycles dried up and, it would seem, her hopes of motherhood too. Imagine the shame and stigma she endured in those times of barrenness.

Through it all, we read that Abraham “did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.” (Romans 4:21). I wonder how Sarah managed, though.

Abraham is held up as the model of hope. Sarah, perhaps, was a little more pragmatic. She sent her servant, Hagar, to do what she thought needed to be done to try and move things along. She was also keen to hold in her arms the one whose birth would fulfil her husband’s hopes. Abraham, who clearly wasn’t perfect, went along with Sarah’s plan.

Let’s stick with Abraham’s example of waiting as something to be imitated. In fact, let’s interpret Sarah’s efforts of trying to do God’s work for him as an example of what not to do while we put up with the suffering of waiting. 

Hope in God’s glory

The hope of Abraham and of Paul is the same hope that enables us to rejoice in our sufferings. It is not the hope of finally being rid of our sufferings. It is not even the hope that we will find purpose in our sufferings. It is the hope that God will do what he has promised.

That promise does not centre on us, but it centres on God’s glory. Paul puts it like this:

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:2b NIV

God’s kingdom is coming and is, in a sense, already here. His glory is our great and certain hope. We have the privilege of participation in God’s work. We are given some special pictures of God’s glory in the book of Revelation, including this one, illustrating a Biblical sense of ‘enlightenment’:

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.

Revelation 21:22-24 NIV

Mutual encouragement

The hope of the glory of God is sure and a reason to rejoice with all our energy in music and dance as well as other ways. But in a mysterious way, Paul explains, we can also rejoice in our sufferings. Pushing through problems and trials serves to strengthen our hope. Let’s encourage one another, even in our sufferings, and especially in our sufferings, to persevere.

It still feels too much of a strain to say to hurting people, ’Rejoice’ … but rejoice we can. We most likely will not enjoy the experiences, but our joy – our rejoicing – comes because of our hope. Our hope is in the glory of God.

Think of Paul … think of Abraham … think of God’s people around you who persevere in suffering. Be encouraged by the hope that drives the perseverance and joy of the people of God.

May God be glorified as we endure with hope.

A prayer

Lord Jesus, we come to you, the one who endured incredible suffering so that we could be reconciled to our Creator and Sustainer. Please will you strengthen each of us in our difficulties and grow us through your indwelling Spirit. Please will you help us not only to endure but even to rejoice when we run into problems and trials. We know in our minds that persevering in trouble develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. It’s harder to experience that in our hearts though. Please strengthen us in our difficulties. We commit ourselves to you afresh as people of hope. In Jesus’ name we pray, and for your glory. Amen.