“In everything we do we show that we are God’s servants by patiently enduring troubles, hardships, and difficulties.”
2 Corinthians 6:4 (GNT) We often think that the world is impressed with our success and how we enjoy our prosperity. But they’re actually more impressed by how we as Christians handle adversity. When you’re going through pain, non-believers around you are watching you. They’re wondering what it means to be a Christian when you’re in the same kind of pain they are. Does it look any different? The truth is, we have the same pain as everybody else. We just have a different source of comfort. Your successes don’t give you credibility. Your suffering gives you credibility. The more honest and vulnerable you are about the suffering in your life, the more powerful your impact will be in people’s lives. The apostle Paul was a pro at using his pain to model his message. He says in 2 Corinthians 6:4, “In everything we do we show that we are God’s servants by patiently enduring troubles, hardships, and difficulties” (GNT). Your deepest life message will come out of your deepest pain. The world doesn’t need to see Christians who are perfect or have it all together. They need something real and authentic. They need to see Christians who are patient in pain, who walk faithfully in suffering. Every area of your life where you’ve experienced pain is a testimony. Has God helped you work your way out of deep debt? That was painful—but it’s also a testimony. Has God helped you patiently endure chronic pain? That’s a testimony. Anywhere you’ve had pain and experienced God’s help is a testimony. Do not waste your pain; don’t waste your hurt. People all around you are going through the very thing you’ve already gone through, and they need your help. They need you to comfort them. The greatest witness of God’s love in all of history was not Jesus’ perfect life, his sermons, his miracles, or his stories. It was his suffering. God can use your faithfulness in suffering to great effect in someone’s life. In fact, your faithfulness in suffering could be your greatest witness!
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“Even though Jesus was God's Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.”
Hebrews 5:8 (NLT) Every pain in your life is an opportunity to grow in character. How do you learn love when you feel unloved? How do you learn joy in the middle of grief? How do you learn peace when everything’s in chaos? How do you learn patience when you’re not feeling patient? You learn those qualities, with God’s grace, when you are going through pain. You have to decide if you’re going to let the pain be a stepping stone to maturity or a stumbling block to spiritual growth. Once you make a decision to follow Jesus, God’s number one purpose in your life is to make you more like Christ. If you’re a part of God’s family, then he wants you to grow up! He helps you do that by taking you through everything Jesus went through. There were times when Jesus was lonely, frustrated, misunderstood, criticized, and in pain. But the Bible says, “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him” (Hebrews 5:8-9 NLT). If Jesus was made perfect through suffering, then you are matured the same way. There are some things you learn only through pain. In that sense, pain becomes a gift if you let it draw you closer to God in worship, closer to others in fellowship, and deeper in discipleship. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he recognized all the ways they had grown through their pain. He says in 2 Corinthians 7:11, “Isn’t it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible” (The Message). Those seven qualities of Christlikeness are developed in you too when you ask God to use your pain to build your character. If you’ll do that, the pain won’t leave you where it found you—it will transform you! “We were really crushed and overwhelmed, and feared we would never live through it. We . . . saw how powerless we were to help ourselves; but that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us.”
2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (TLB) Whenever you experience something painful in your life, you have a choice: You can run from God, or you can run to God. Running from God never makes sense,. How are you going to get any comfort when you’re running from the greatest source of comfort? If you’ll choose to run to God, you can use your pain to draw closer to him in worship. How do you do that? You don’t tell him what you think you ought to say. Instead, you tell him exactly how you feel. You argue with him and tell him that you don’t like the pain. This is called lament. The Bible is full of people crying out to God in lament, including one-third of the psalms. Even complaining to God is an act of worship. You can worship in all the phases of grief. You can express your shock. You can unload your sorrow. You can share your struggle. You can surrender. You can ask God to use the pain for good in your life. Paul does this in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9. He says, “We were really crushed and overwhelmed, and feared we would never live through it. We . . . saw how powerless we were to help ourselves; but that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us” (TLB). There are thousands of stories of people who came to know Jesus out of their pain, whose lives were totally transformed in the process of worshiping when they were in pain. And I can say to them, like Paul said in 2 Corinthians 7:9, “I am glad . . . not because it hurt you but because the pain turned you to God” (TLB). When you’re in pain, it’s not a time to run away from God. It’s a chance for you to draw close to God, trust him more, worship him more, and—ultimately—know and love him more. “In our trouble God has comforted us—and this, too, to help you: to show you from our personal experience how God will tenderly comfort you when you undergo these same sufferings. He will give you the strength to endure.”
2 Corinthians 1:6 -7 (TLB) God expects you to use your pain to help others. Whatever mistake, failure, trouble, trial, or bad decision you’ve experienced, God says, “I’ll still use it for good in your life. And I expect you to use it to help others.” This is called redemptive suffering. “In our trouble God has comforted us—and this, too, to help you: to show you from our personal experience how God will tenderly comfort you when you undergo these same sufferings. He will give you the strength to endure” (2 Corinthians 1:6-7 TLB). Think of the biggest troubles you’ve had in your life and the worst pain you’ve had to endure physically or emotionally. God doesn’t want you to waste that hurt; he wants to redeem your suffering. You can always help people more through your weaknesses than through your strengths. Telling someone all the things you’re good at won’t help someone in pain. But sharing with them how God has walked with you through your pain could change their life. What pain in your life are you not talking about because you think it’s a burden you have to carry alone? God wants to use you right now—not when you’ve fully recovered or moved past your pain. He wants to use you even in the areas that you have been embarrassed about and that still hurt. Part of God’s dream for your life is that you help people, not just through your gifts and strengths but also through your pain. This is what Jesus has done for you. This is the power of the Gospel. “These sufferings of ours are for your benefit. And the more of you who are won to Christ, the more there are to thank him for his great kindness, and the more the Lord is glorified.”
2 Corinthians 4:15 (TLB) When you use your pain to help others, God will bless you in ways you can’t possibly imagine. The Apostle Paul went through enormous pain in his life, which is why God was able to use him in enormous ways. He was shipwrecked, beaten, and robbed. He went without food, water, and sleep. Yet God used him to spread the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire. In fact, if you were to ask Paul, “How’d you put up with so much pain?” He’d tell you it was because he wanted to bring people to Jesus Christ. He wanted to help others. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:15, “These sufferings of ours are for your benefit. And the more of you who are won to Christ, the more there are to thank him for his great kindness, and the more the Lord is glorified” (TLB). You may never suffer the same ways Paul did, but you will go through pain in life. So you might as well use your pain for good and not waste it. There are actually three kinds of suffering God uses to help others: self-imposed suffering, innocent suffering, and redemptive suffering. Some suffering is the kind you bring upon yourself. You cause some of your own problems by making poor judgements. You don’t always eat the right foods, make the right decisions, or respond the right way to others. Innocent suffering is when, through no fault of your own, you get hurt by someone else. Whether you were abandoned, rejected, or scammed, everyone has been hurt by the sins of other people. But the highest form of suffering is redemptive suffering. This is when you go through pain or problems for the benefit of others. This is what Jesus did. When Jesus died on the cross, he didn’t deserve to die. He went through that pain for your benefit so that you can be saved and go to heaven. In the same way, God will use your pain to bring hope and healing to others. Who can better help somebody going through a bankruptcy than somebody who went through a bankruptcy? Who can better help somebody struggling with an addiction than somebody who’s struggled with an addiction? Who can better help parents of a special needs child than parents who raised a special needs child? Who can better help somebody who’s lost a child than somebody who lost a child? God will never waste a hurt. God will work in your life so that he can work through you to encourage others. Praise God and rejoice during a trial, because suffering will build your endurance and help others in their pain. God can use all three kinds of suffering for good. Start by giving each of your hurts to him and say, “God, I want you to use my pain to benefit others.” “[Moses] chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”
Hebrews 11:25 (NIV) If you’re going to be good at anything—if you’re going to have long-term gain—you’ve got to accept short-term pain. Anybody who’s ever played sports knows this. To end up in a championship game, you’ve got to work hard and practice for long hours. But it’s not just true in sports. It’s true in finances and in relationships. To have a good marriage, sometimes it takes working hard at it for years. It doesn’t come easy. To make your marriage work, you’ve got to work at it, just like anything else in life. Many of your problems come from your inability to delay gratification. Society teaches you to say, “I want everything, and I want it now. And I want it to be free and easy.” But life doesn’t work like that! To experience long-term gain, you have to make a choice, like Moses did: “He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25 NIV). He chose to be mistreated—to endure the short-term pain for the long-term gain of doing the right thing. Pain is part of life. And if you choose to do the hard thing right now and put in the effort to learn and grow, to become strong and mature, then later in life you will benefit from it. For example, some people are benefiting right now from decisions they made earlier in life not to spend more than they made—to save, tithe, and honor God. They’re benefiting many years later because they were disciplined and did the hard thing first. When you choose the short-term pain like Moses did, you’ll see God deliver you so that you can enjoy the long-term reward. “‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’"
Isaiah 55:8-9 (NLT) There probably have been many times that you’ve prayed for something, and God didn’t answer the way you wanted, or you feel like he didn’t answer at all. Does that mean prayer doesn’t work? No—because you’ve seen it work too many times. Does it mean that God isn’t good? No, God is good, whether you’re in pain or not. Does it mean that you should give up on prayer? No! God is not a vending machine, and prayer is not a painkiller. He has not guaranteed us a pain-free life. When you’re in pain and you pray but don’t see the answers, don’t give up. Your job is to keep praying and keep trusting God, because you know that everything he does and allows in your life, he will use for good. God is a good, good Father, even when you’re in pain. If a doctor cuts you open during surgery, that’s going to cause some pain. But if that surgery saves your life, you wouldn’t say the doctor was bad; you’d recognize that the painful work saved your life. When God doesn’t immediately end your pain, he is saying to you in that moment, “This pain may feel like too much. But my grace is sufficient for you.” Most everything we've learned in life is learned through pain. God is more interested in making you a man or woman of character than he is in making you comfortable. If you never had any pain or difficulty in your life, you would never grow to maturity. You don’t know God is all you need until God is all you’ve got. “‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT). God wants good for your life, even more than you do. Will you trust him? “Since Christ suffered and underwent pain, you must have the same attitude he did; you must be ready to suffer, too. For remember, when your body suffers, sin loses its power.”
1 Peter 4:1 (TLB) When you’re in pain, who’s the person you’re thinking of the most? You! It’s your nature to be self-centered—because you’re human. When you’re suffering, you want to be comforted. When you’re sick, you want to be cared for. When you’re sad, you want to be held. Pain makes you self-centered. But God says, if you’re going to learn how to love like he does, you’ve got to try to see other people’s pain, even when you’re in pain. Jesus is our greatest example of this. When he was hanging on the cross, he was in enormous physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. He was carrying all the sin of the world! But in his dying moments, he noticed the pain of other people. He prayed, “Father forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34 GW). And he said to the guy next to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43 GW). He also made sure his mother would be cared for. He wasn’t thinking about himself, even when he was in agony. God’s Word says to have the same attitude as Jesus (Philippians 2:5). That means, when you’re in pain, you should look around and see who else is in pain. You should think of others, even as you care for yourself. That’s a hard one. How do you look at the pain of others when you’re in pain? “Since Christ suffered and underwent pain, you must have the same attitude he did; you must be ready to suffer, too. For remember, when your body suffers, sin loses its power” (1 Peter 4:1 TLB). With God’s grace, you can look past your own pain. And when you do, sin loses its power and you become more like Jesus. God can use your pain, too, to help others struggling with the same pain. “[God] comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.”
2 Corinthians 1:4-5 (NLT) When you’re going through pain, you can choose to focus on yourself or on other people. When you choose to focus on serving other hurting people, that’s called redemptive suffering. It is the highest and best use of your pain. No matter what pain you’ve gone through, Jesus wants to redeem your suffering. He doesn’t want it to be wasted! He wants to use it to help other people when they are in pain. “[God] comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:4-5 NLT). Who’s better qualified to help a struggling veteran than somebody who’s been a struggling veteran? Who’s better qualified to help someone recovering from a prescription drug addiction than somebody who has recovered from a prescription drug addiction? Who could better help someone who is suffering from a chronic illness than someone who has also suffered in the same way? Your greatest ministry will come out of your deepest pain. If you’ll be honest with God, others, and yourself about whatever struggle you’ve faced, then that struggle will become your ministry. Sharing your strengths doesn’t make you feel any closer to someone. But when you share the experiences that have led you to surrender to God and rely on his strength, then you’ll be connected to others more deeply than you can imagine. Why? Because when you—as a broken person—share with other broken people how God has restored you, you’re not just sharing something you have in common. You’re sharing hope that other people can also experience redemption through Jesus Christ. Sharing your pain helps you and the people around you to grow in Christ. Using your pain to serve others is a form of ministry. Don’t waste your pain. Let God use it for your greatest ministry. “The LORD is near to those who are discouraged; he saves those who have lost all hope.”
(Psalm 34:18 GNT) Life is filled with unexpected circumstances. Some of these knock you flat on your back. They make it feel like the roof of your life has caved in. What do you do when your world collapses? When the dreaded phone call comes? When the divorce papers arrive? When the bankruptcy is filed? The first question most people ask is, “Who cares?” After Jesus was killed, his disciples met together but locked the doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders who had sent Jesus to the cross. The disciples felt like they were alone, and because of that, they were afraid and expected the worst. But then something happened that changed everything: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord” (John 20:19-20 NIV). The difference was immediate. The presence of Christ turned their panic into a party, their fear into good cheer. During every moment of your life, from the very best to the very worst, God is with you. He cares for you. You will never walk through something hard alone. In fact, God is never closer than when you are in pain. He tells you, “When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up—the flames will not consume you” (Isaiah 43:2 TLB). Are you hurting today? Are you asking, “Who cares about me?” Are you afraid that no one does? You can rest more easily today knowing that God cares. He has never left you. He is with you now. He has been with you all along. You are not alone. Believe that today, and experience the peace that Christ brings. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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