10 Reasons God Graciously Gives Suffering

When God graciously gives us suffering there are some purposes God has in the suffering of His people.

  1. Suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory. 2 Cor. 4:17, “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.” Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”  Notice the contrasts. Light affliction/weight of glory. Momentary affliction/ eternal glory. Beyond all comparison. Sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed.
  2. In suffering, we learn His statutes. Psalm 119: 71, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.” When we endure suffering or affliction, we learn how to count it all joy (James 1:2) and how to trust in Him through difficult times and pour out our hearts to Him (Psalm 62). We learn to persevere in prayer and to never give up (Luke 18:1) Those are just a few examples of how we learn His statues in the midst of affliction.
  3. From suffering, we learn to obey. Psalm 119:67, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” Isn’t this the logic we use when we discipline our children? When they disobey, we discipline them, and part of the reason is so that they will learn to obey.  And God does likewise.  There are sometimes negative consequences for our sinfulness, and that discipline (which feels like suffering) helps us to learn to obey His commands.
  4.  He uses suffering to produce His holiness in us. Heb. 12:10, “For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.” This is closely linked to the previous two: learning His statutes and learning to obey. 
  5. Suffering reveals what is truly in our hearts and humbles us. Deut. 8:2"You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” Hebrews 5:8, “though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Spoken of Christ, this verse demonstrates that Christ had a proven obedience. Suffering is the grounds for proven obedience.
  6. We learn to rely or trust in God. 2 Cor. 1:8-10, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope.  And He will yet deliver us.”  Macarthur says, “When we are without strength, we have to rest in His.”[1] 2 Cor. 12:9.
  7. Our suffering causes us to grow in compassion and we can comfort those in similar afflictions. 2 Cor. 1:3-7, “Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.  But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.” This is the unique way God knits the body of Christ together: being able to comfort those going through similar trials.
  8. Suffering increases our longing for heaven and breaks our love affair with this world (Rom. 8: 23-25). Romans 8:23-25, “And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.  For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” We must have our hope set on the right thing.  We must hope in eternal things and in God Himself.  All other things that we could hope in, will fail us eventually.  But only those things which are truly eternal will give us a confidant hope. And several times in Scripture it describes the believer as the one who eagerly waits for Christ’s coming. When we have a face-to-face encounter with the sufferings in this world, it makes us long even more for the redemption of our body and for the making of all things new, for a time of no sorrow and only rejoicing.
  9. So that we may know Him (Phil. 3:10-11). Phil. 3:10-11, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” This is a knowing by experience.  How do we know/experience Him as our Healer unless we are sick and suffering? How do we know Him by experience as our Refuge unless we are in trouble? How do we know Him as our comforter unless we are sorrowing and mourning? How do we know Him as our strength unless we are weak? How do we know Him as our Peace unless we are in turmoil? How do we know Him as our help unless we are in need? How do we know Him as our sustainer unless our burdens are too much for us to bear? “However, as with any aspect of truth in the Christian life, intellectual knowledge is not an exact parallel to experiential knowledge.  Until we know how we react in the midst of living out a certain truth, intellectual allegiance counts for nothing.  Testing the validity of what believers profess is one of the fundamental reasons God allows suffering.’[2] I’m sure you have all experienced this in your own lives. Something about the character of God becomes dearer to you because in your trials you have experienced Him to meet your needs. You may not know the reason of your suffering, but you can come to know more deeply the God who governs your suffering.
  10. Suffering produces spiritual maturity. (James 1:2-4, Rom. 5:3-5) James 1:2-4, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” Rom. 5:3-5, “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
These are but a few of the ways in which God works in our suffering.  He has myriads of purposes He accomplishes through our trials. Job 26:14, “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; and how faint a word we hear of Him!”

After seeing all that God might be accomplishing in our suffering, can we see it as a graciously given gift from God? 

“Yet I have come to understand even suffering, through the transforming power of the Cross, as a gift, for in this broken world, in our sorrow, He gives us Himself; in our loneliness, He comes to meet us.” -Elisabeth Elliot inThe Path of Loneliness


[1] MacArthur, John. The Power of Suffering.

[2] MacArthur, John. The Power of Suffering


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