Perhaps some of what we call suffering is teaching us how to endure.
“If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”
— Proverbs 24:10
I listened to a message about the Rapture today, and one thought would not leave me.
The speaker described what it might mean to remain on earth during the Tribulation: scarcity, hunger, fear, persecution, and a world in which remaining faithful to Christ could cost a person everything.
And I found myself thinking:
If we cannot endure the little discomforts of today, how do we imagine we will endure the great trials of tomorrow?
We live in a world that teaches us to eliminate discomfort almost immediately.
Hungry? Eat.
Lonely? Find someone.
Uncomfortable? Change the environment.
Desiring something? Get it.
Bored? Pick up the phone.
We have become so accustomed to immediate relief that sometimes even temporary deprivation feels unbearable.
And suddenly fasting began to make even more sense to me.
Why would God ask a person surrounded by food to voluntarily become hungry?
Perhaps because fasting teaches the flesh a sentence it desperately needs to learn:
You are not in charge.
Food is good.
Marriage is good.
Sex within its proper place is good.
Comfort is good.
Money can be useful.
Beautiful clothes, pleasant fragrances, a warm home, nourishing food, and the ordinary conveniences of life can all be gifts.
But a gift becomes dangerous when we become incapable of remaining faithful without it.
Perhaps that is part of what fasting teaches.
I can be hungry and still pray.
I can desire something and still say no.
I can be uncomfortable and still have peace.
I can lose something and still belong to God.
And then I thought about Jesus.
Before the cross, there was the wilderness.
Forty days.
Hunger.
Temptation.
Satan approached Christ precisely when His body had been deprived.
“Command that these stones be made bread.”
Jesus could have done it.
But He would not allow physical hunger to determine spiritual obedience.
And later came Gethsemane.
Then betrayal.
Humiliation.
Mockery.
Scourging.
The crown of thorns.
The carrying of the cross.
And finally Calvary.
Christianity was never founded upon the promise that following Christ would mean never suffering.
At its very center stands a Savior on a cross.
Jesus told His followers to take up their cross and follow Him.
Perhaps that is why the lives of so many saints are littered with suffering.
Not because suffering automatically makes someone holy.
Not because God delights in watching His children hurt.
And certainly not because we should manufacture misery or refuse legitimate help when we need it.
But suffering received faithfully can teach the soul what comfort cannot.
It teaches us that pain does not have the final word.
It teaches us that hunger does not have to command us.
It teaches us that desire does not have to own us.
It teaches us that losing something does not mean losing God.
And perhaps, in ways we do not immediately understand, the crosses we carry here are strengthening spiritual muscles we may someday desperately need.
Many Christians believe that Christ will gather His people to Himself before a period of extraordinary tribulation; Christians differ about precisely how and when those end-times events unfold.
But whatever our understanding of that timeline, Scripture repeatedly tells believers to watch, remain faithful, persevere, and endure.
That makes the question personal.
If I cannot tolerate hunger for a few hours when food is waiting for me afterward, what is my relationship with appetite?
If I cannot live without constant comfort, what happens when comfort disappears?
If every unanswered prayer makes me question God, what happens when the answer takes years?
If inconvenience makes me abandon discipline, what happens when discipleship actually becomes costly?
We often imagine that when a great spiritual test arrives, we will suddenly become courageous.
Maybe courage does not work that way.
Perhaps the courage required for the great day is cultivated through faithfulness on ordinary days.
Every fast may whisper:
You can be hungry without being conquered by hunger.
Every season of waiting may whisper:
You can want something without abandoning God because He has not given it yet.
Every sacrifice may whisper:
You can surrender something precious and still remain whole.
Every earthly cross faithfully carried may whisper:
You are learning to follow the One who carried His cross before you.
Then Proverbs 24:10 becomes more than a beautiful verse:
“If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”
Maybe the day of adversity does not create our spiritual strength as much as it reveals what has been cultivated before it arrived.
That is why perhaps we should not despise every difficult season.
Some suffering should be changed when we can change it. Some injustice should be confronted. Some illness should be treated. Some burdens should be shared.
But there are also crosses we cannot immediately put down.
And when those seasons come, perhaps our prayer should not always be only:
“Lord, take this away.”
Sometimes another prayer may be necessary:
“Lord, if I must walk through this, do not let me walk through it unchanged.”
Teach me endurance.
Teach me discipline.
Teach me to distinguish what I enjoy from what I worship.
Teach me to possess things without allowing things to possess me.
Teach me to hunger without becoming faithless.
Teach me to wait without becoming bitter.
Teach me to suffer without losing love.
Teach me to carry my little crosses while keeping my eyes upon Your great Cross.
Because whether Christ comes for me tomorrow or I live to old age, I want to be ready.
Not merely with supplies.
Not merely with knowledge of prophecy.
But with a soul that has practiced saying:
Jesus, even here, I choose You.
Perhaps preparation for the coming of Christ is not primarily learning how to survive without bread.
Perhaps it is learning, while bread is still plentiful, that:
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
And perhaps some of the suffering we endure here on earth is doing something we cannot yet see.
It is loosening our grip on this world.
It is teaching us that comfort is temporary.
It is teaching us that the flesh cannot have everything it demands.
It is teaching us to carry a cross.
It is teaching us endurance.
And above all, it is teaching us to desire Christ more than everything we may one day have to leave behind.
By Joan A. Roberts
