People who have endured suffering and proven God to be faithful are strong, mellow and patient. They have the gentleness of Christ. I love to be around such people! They encourage my spirit.
You will come through your trial and be of great help to others if you will trust God through it. You will see it happen on your job, in your family or in your church. People will be attracted to you because they know what you have gone through, and they have seen you gain the victory through the power of God alone.
Many believers who suffer never learn anything from it. As a result, they never know God as their comforter or consoler. To hear them talk, you would think God was hard, spiteful and uncaring. They ask, “Why me?” They doubt God’s love and begin to turn away from him. They moan, groan and murmur, and all their joy fades. Soon they grow bitter and hard.
I have a pastor friend who for years had a very successful ministry to troubled people. Today, sadly, he is deep in sin, drug-addicted and separated from God. His wife left him, and he has taken up with a drug-addicted woman.
When you ask him what happened, he blames it all on how others let him down. His wife left him; God didn’t answer his prayers; other ministers disappointed him. He says, “I really tried, but I just couldn’t take it. There were too many pressures, and there were so many hypocrites. I was misjudged, and I couldn’t handle that.”
The apostle Paul, even in the worst hour of his sufferings, blessed the name of the Lord. He knew the Father was full of mercy and the source of all his comfort. He did not question God or become bitter; in fact, he praised him in the midst of it all.
The best teachers in any church are not the ones in the pulpit. Rather, they are sitting in the pews right next to you, people who have suffered and yet still worship the Lord. The language of those who learn through suffering is praise!