Several years ago, there was a man going through great physical problems and one of his legs had to be amputated. That did not arrest the course of his disease, and he ultimately died because of it. Just a few days before the man\u2019s death, a minister visited him in the hospital, and the patient said something that perfectly expresses what \u201crejoicing in suffering\u201d means to a Christian: \u201cI never would have chosen one of the trials that I\u2019ve gone through, but I wouldn\u2019t have missed any of them for the world!\u201d<\/p>\n
This man had an awareness that his suffering was something of value. He wouldn\u2019t have missed it! He wouldn\u2019t have chosen it either! That is rejoicing in suffering.1350<\/p>\n
An unknown author has written these very appropriate words about suffering:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is well that we should think, sometimes, of the Upper Room, and of the Last Supper, and of His soul \u2018exceeding sorrowful unto death\u2019; of Gethsemane, the deep shadow of the olive trees, his loneliness, prayers, and disappointment with his disciples, his bloody sweat; the traitor\u2019s kiss, the binding, the blow in the face, the spitting, the buffeting, the mocking, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the smiting; the sorrowful way, and burdensome cross, the exhaustion and collapse; the stripping, the impaling, the jeers of his foes, the flight of his friends; the hours on the cross, the darkness, his being forsaken of God; his thirst, and the end.1351<\/p>\n
You may explain to a child all the medical reasons why he must have a shot in the arm, but when the nurse gets ready to plunge that needle into his arm, he runs to Mommy. Comfort comes not in always knowing the reason why, but in knowing the comforter.1352<\/p>\n
It is clear from Scripture that \u201crejoicing in suffering\u201d is not simply stoicism. It is not simply a grin-and-bear-it attitude of tough-it-out-and-see-how-much-you-can-take, or just-hang-in-there-until-it\u2019s-over-and-don\u2019t-let-anything-get-you-down, or keep-a-stiff-upper-lip. Many people feel that if they do this, they are obeying God and \u201crejoicing in suffering.\u201d But they are not.1353<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several years ago, there was a man going through great physical problems and one of his legs had to be amputated. That did not arrest the course of his disease, and he ultimately died because of it. Just a few days before the man\u2019s death, a minister visited him in the hospital, and the patient … Continue reading “SUFFERING, RESPONSE TO”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}