Hope In Our Suffering

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Sunday Reflection

Read Elaine Poproski’s reflection on this sermon called, “A Call to Lament” on our Sunday Reflections’ Blog.

Sunday Scripture Reading: Romans 5:1-5 (NRSV)

1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. Read more…

Looking to Sunday: Preparing to Hear from God

by Elaine Poproski

The passage of Scripture we’ll be reading and thinking about on Sunday, is one that has brought me comfort many times. It’s at the beginning of Romans 5. It’s the part where the Apostle Paul points out that suffering isn’t wasted energy, but is redeemed by God to make us more like Jesus. In Paul’s words:

…suffering produces endurance, and
endurance produces character, and
character produces hope…

I don’t know about you, but I have been thankful for this truth more than once in my life. And yet, it’s important to remember that for lots of people, these words don’t ring true. For lots of people, suffering is just suffering. Suffering does nothing more than wreck them. What is it that makes the difference?

I am convinced that the difference is faith – faith in Jesus’ miraculous act of restoring our relationship with God to what it was meant to be from the beginning. Faith that if we let Him, God is about the business of making us more and more like Jesus, which means more and more like we were intended to be before sin and death entered the scene. As much as I don’t believe suffering is ever what God wants for us, suffering will continue to be inevitable until Jesus returns and God’s Kingdom is on earth as it is in heaven. What a wonderful truth that God takes our suffering and uses it to accomplish His grand purpose of freeing us and making us better!

If we allow it.

If we invite it.

As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps spend some time looking back at a time of suffering in your own life. How did that suffering change your character? Are you more like Jesus because of it? As you prepare for Sunday, maybe spend some time with God thanking Him for the ways He has redeemed your suffering, or asking Him to redeem your suffering.