Is There Purpose In My Pain?

Lets Talk About It
July 7, 2024

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” —John 16:33

Pain is a normal part of life.

Suffering serves God’s purposes in our lives.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings…
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. —Romans 5:1-4

It’s not that we boast in the source of our suffering, it’s that we boast in what will be produced in our lives through our suffering.

What does suffering produce in our lives?

1.) PERSERVERANCE

The seed falling on rocky soil refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. —Matthew 13:20-21

2.) CHARACTER

A proven Christian is not a Christian who’s proven how strong they are, but how willing they are to be strong in the Lord.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
hese have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. —1 Peter 1:6-7

3.) HOPE

Sufferings, rather than threatening or weakening hope, as we might expect to be the case, will, instead, increase our certainty in that hope. Hope, like a muscle, will not be strong if it goes unused. It is in suffering that we must exercise with deliberation and fortitude our hope, and the constant reaffirmation of hope in the midst of apparently “hopeless” circumstances will bring ever-deeper conviction of the reality and certainty of that for which we hope. —Douglas Moo

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. —Romans 5:5

Are you becoming more hopeful or more cynical?