Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from Keeping Faith When Life Hurts by Joni Eareckson Tada.
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In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. — 1 Peter 1:6-7
Somewhere after my first decade in my wheelchair, I was gratified by the changes in my life. All things were working together for my good and God’s glory—it didn’t mean being an author or speaker; it meant being like Christ. Hardships were forcing me to make decisions about God—my faith was becoming more muscular.
Suffering was doing a job on my character—I was able to stick to promises, not be sloppy in relationships, quit whining, and be more patient. My thoughts were being jerked right side up—I couldn’t reach for the common temptations like before (having no hands helped with that). Also...
Suffering was making me more sensitive to others. I couldn’t have cared less about people like me before my accident, but now it was a different story. Being paralyzed was making heaven come alive—not in a cop-out way, but in a way that made me want to live better here on earth because greater things were coming in the next life.
A checklist like this sounds dry and technical, but years ago it helped answer—at least in part—that sticky question, “Why does God pile on hardships so high?” Well—hey!—God is more concerned with conforming us to the likeness of His Son than leaving us in our comfort zones.
God is more interested in inward qualities than outward circumstances.
Today, look for the “reasons” God has for your hardship. When you find them, you will
move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity. — Hebrews 6:1
Lord, you are the One who holds all the reasons in Your hands. I can trust You with every reason!
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And Reasons Lead to . . .
Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. — 1 Corinthians 8:6
- Suffering is not pointless.
God intends that our afflictions will lead to Christian maturity. God uses hardships to improve our character, remove sinful habits, make us Heaven-hearted, and instill compassion toward others, to name a few.
But answers and reasons, no matter how good and true they are, cannot be the coup de grâce. Purified faith should never be an end in itself—it should culminate in God. Stronger character is made muscular not for its own sake, but God’s. A livelier hope is more spirited because its focus is not on “things getting better,” but on God. To forget this is to tarnish faith, weaken character, and deflate hope. As the Phillips’ paraphrase puts 2 Peter 1:8,
If you have these qualities existing and growing in you then it means that knowing our Lord Jesus Christ has not made your lives either complacent or unproductive.
It really is all about Jesus. Simply Jesus. “There is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we live.”
We must never distance the Bible’s reasons from God. The problem of suffering is not about some thing, but Someone. It follows that the answers and reasons must not be some thing, but Someone. The Bible never bids us to keep our eyes on suffering, or even suffering’s benefits. Only on God, the One who wrote the book on suffering. Consider the good and valued benefits for the hardship in your life. Can you say with the apostle Paul,
I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. — Philippians 3:8–9
Lord Jesus, keep my focus off not only my hardships, but even whatever benefits might come of those hardships. May my focus always and only be on You. Especially today.
Excerpted with permission from Keeping Faith When Life Hurts by Joni Eareckson Tada, copyright Joni Eareckson Tada.
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Your Turn
God is more interested in inward qualities than outward circumstances. What reasons have you discovered that God has for your hardship? ~ Devotionals Daily