What’s the purpose of suffering?
As we are human, we will face and encounter countless amounts of pain and suffering. Pain and suffering exist as more than a choice, it is a requirement to follow Jesus. To exist as a human is to experience pain. When we accept our pain’s purpose, we can accept our purpose. At the point of acceptance, I can count it all joy when I fall or encounter diverse kinds of Temptation.
Moving beyond the pain into a place of healing, we can forget what is behind us and look forward, pressing towards the mark, the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. We can claim our healing when the pain no longer defines us as we accept the divine calling to experience pain. God calls all of us, and we receive that call as an invitation to join God in the fellowship of suffering.
Embrace the hardship
Moving into a fellowship of suffering, we can say, “thank you, Jesus, for calling me. I embrace the pain and move into my healing. After all, is the high calling to experience pain? To suffer is to reign with Christ in power, as the Apostle Paul reminds us in Philippians 3:10, “That I may know Christ in the power of His resurrection and the in the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto His death.”
As you walk with Christ, you will experience pain and suffering as Christ also experienced His suffering, even His death on the cross. With your new found understanding of pain, walk forward and embrace the process of God shaping you through your painful encounters. Rather than running away from the pain, walk through it as the Psalmists challenges us to join him in walking though the valley of the shadow of death (Psalms 23:4). Remember, Jesus is with you in every season, and if He is with you then nothing standing against you will succeed.
Click here for a deeper dive into “suffering and loss”.