Is Pain & Suffering a Gift from God?

Without pain, suffering, and failure I would be much less than I am today.  It appears that God grows us in the red zone and not necessarily in our comfort zone.  It seems that those who know Christ most intimately have learned that intimacy on the anvil of failure and suffering.  It is through the dark nights that others have been forced to cry out to God and in so doing, learned that He is sufficient, good, powerful and the only one who can ultimately rescue their soul from trouble.

Suffering is the maker of character and faith if we treat it properly.  There is really no growth in our life without pain.  That pain may be inflicted upon us by others or even brought upon us by ourselves, or it may simply be the circumstances of life that we encounter.  Regardless, our Sovereign God allows and appoints things in our lives in order to make us better and not bitter.  The things we hate and resist may be the very things that God wants us to learn to trust Him with. 

Peter understood suffering well and he was a recipient of great pain and at the same time great grace. “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trains. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Father, I pray that in the crucible of difficulties that You send my way that You would help me to see it as a blessing to trust You more and to allow You to make me more effective for Your service.  May my faith in you come forth as gold.