![[Photo a woman rejoicing]](https://www.deankwilson.com/Blog_images/rejoice_in_suffering.jpg)
| Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope… |
| —Romans 5:3-4 |
We Americans have become quite proficient at taking certain philosophical concepts and “secularizing” them for our own purposes. Here’s one example:
karma: In the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is the belief that the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence will decide his or her fate in future existences.
Even though the word “karma” represents the belief of two particular religions, we Americans have secularized the philosophical concept represented by this word, so that we may use it to explain what we either observe, or hope to observe, about the behavior of the humans who inhabit the spaces around us. Said another way, we hope against hope that the phrase “what goes around, comes around” will prove true for us, but particularly for those who may do something to harm us.
We even apply this somewhat distorted concept to the “bad things” that may happen to us in our lives. When we suffer, we may believe that our suffering has come because of something we did that deserves punishment. Likewise, when we have great success, we often believe that we are only getting what we deserve because of the good we have done.
Scripture does not support this distorted view. In contrast, we have this example from John 9:1-3:
“Who sinned that this man was born blind?” asked the Disciples.
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
In this life, suffering comes because of the sin nature passed down from Adam that affects every aspect of our life on earth. This includes the substance of the earth itself, as well as every aspect of human life. Much to the chagrin of many individuals who do not understand the impact of the sin curse, climate change—if, in fact, there really is climate change instead of a normal cycle of climate variance—comes as a result of the sin curse. Humans do not cause climate change. To ascribe to humans the ability to cause a change in something so profound as the climate would minimize the creative power of the God who made the climate. But, that’s a discussion for another day.
Suffering comes into our lives because we live in a sin-cursed world. When we experience suffering, it is not necessarily because of our actions—although our actions can make our suffering worse. A person who smokes two packs of cigarettes every day from the time he or she is thirteen years old may well succumb to lung cancer. But, there actually are other lifelong smokers who do not die from this dreaded disease.
Suffering is a part of our sin-cursed lives on this sin-cursed earth. The real question is what we will do when suffering comes into our lives. The answer lies within the Scripture verses at the beginning of this blog post.
The Apostle Paul writes to the Christians gathered in the church at Rome. Paul insists that suffering starts a chain reaction for believers—a natural progression—that carries them into a place of rejoicing. Suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character. Character produces hope. And, best of all, hope will not disappoint us. Why? Because hope draws us into the fullness of God’s loving embrace.
Can we rejoice when we face suffering in our lives? Yes, we can! And, we had better do so. After all, the very Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, sufferend on the cross of Calvary to bear the punishment for our sins. His suffering was the greatest suffering a human could ever endure. As a result, our sins have been forgiven, our relationship with God restored, and our life everlasting is just over the next hilltop.
