Suffering is not something that we enjoy. We often work very hard to avoid any level of distress or pain. Nobody has a “bucket list” of painful experiences that they want to check off. So, you ask, what is the upside of suffering and pain? The following are but a few:
“Hard-won lessons through suffering and pain.”
- In every crisis, there is opportunity. The worst times in your life can often become the most significant times of personal growth, development, and spiritual renewal. Ironically, the place of pain – that you are working so hard to avoid right now – is also the very same place where greatness is born. Yes, in a season of insecurity and vulnerability, God can do his most exceptional work in your life.
- Lean in. Warriors do not run from the battle. They take an offensive position and confront the enemy had on. Winston Churchill once said, “Wars are not won by evacuation!” During the most challenging times in life, I have learned to “lean into” the pressure, “lean into” God, and to allow the process to purify me. (1 Peter 1:7)
- It’s your choice. My attitudes, behavior, and outlook on life are all determined by my thought-life. (II Corinthians 10:5, Proverbs 25:28) In Viktor Frankl’s sentinel book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” he writes: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.
Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”
