God Compensates for the Worst by Redeeming for us the Best

The world hates suffering. None of us like it. But it is necessary for the better things to come. But that isn’t a theology many, if anyone, in our day will be comfortable with.

Something happens to us when we suffer. Coming quickly to the end of our own strength, we realise how much we took life for granted when it was easy. Or, without suffering, how pathetically ill-equipped we were to live a good life. When we suffer, our whole internal, personal, private world has imploded and there’s nothing we can do to fix it. Actually, the more dire and untenable the situation, the better.

Suffering is by nature irreconcilable, and no Christian can reach anywhere near their full potential unless they have experienced such a pitiable, back-against-the-wall reality.

Suffering is the greatest enabler of the single-path journey. It leaves us no choice but to travel earnestly in the fear of the Lord. Having no option open to us but faith, suffering compels and propels us forward in knowing faith is the only way, no matter how hard it is. Any compromise into supposedly easier journeys ahead are rejected no matter how easy or appropriate they would seem to be.

By suffering the only way God can help us,
He compensates us by giving us
our purpose and abilities to achieve it.

In suffering, we’re driven past our normal responses of ambivalence into unprecedented territory. Finally, God has us in a position that rivals the great white throne judgment. From there, there’s no choice open to us, because there’s a truth to be told.

Suffering forces us to acknowledge the harsh truth, and live with it in such an unescapable way that we must get better. Suffering wakes us up from our spiritual slumber and makes us cling to God more ardently than ever.

It is from this standpoint that God gives us the dream we’ve long awaited, together with the gifts He’s prepared in advance for us to have.

Through suffering the only way God can help us, He somehow makes up for the pain we endured, giving us a special purpose, and gifts to help us execute that purpose.