God's Grace to Us in Suffering: Encouraging Words from Romans

I’m on day seven of being sick, and at the risk of sounding dramatic, I’ll say, it has been totally and completely brutal. As much as I’d love to be one of those tough-it-out, put-on-your-brave-face, get-it-done sick people…I’m more of a weepy, groaning, snotty, symptom-googling mess.

I haven’t had the capacity to dig into my bible much this week. I’ve cracked it open here and there, but something about reading makes my head feel like it’s on a merry-go-round. Even my prayer life has been desperate. You’d think that someone who is just lying in bed would have tons of time to pray, but I’m realizing praying takes energy. Have you heard Romans 8:26? It describes my prayer life lately:

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pay for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”

Laying there, I’ve just been like, “um God, hi. Don’t even know what to pray for but Holy Spirit, help!” Then I vaguely go through all the things both presently and upcoming that are weighing for me and just trust that the Holy Spirit is bringing my prayers before God.

Anyways, that was a tangent. What I want to write about today is the little treasure I found when I was able to open my Bible. I opened to Romans 5 and came across this:

…we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

That’s right, the one significant time I was able to read God’s word, I came across a passage on suffering. And it blessed me.

What does it mean to glory in our sufferings? When you dive into that word in its original greek, it means you have joy, or rejoice, or boast (find satisfaction in) in your suffering. So, we can rejoice in times of suffering, because we know that it’s producing perseverance, character, and hope.

This means, in hardship, even though it’s completely miserable and I really would like to be healthy, my heart is more open to what God might be producing in me. I’ve seen him do a deep work in hard times before, and that gives me hope as I walk through hard times again.

When I was pregnant with my second son, I was a wreck. I experienced nausea that lasted months and months. So little energy. Pain in places I probably shouldn’t write about on the internet… It was a hard season of life and I remember just laying on the couch feeling completely inept: I couldn’t help my family. Couldn’t cook. Could hardly smile. Couldn’t make jokes. Couldn’t take my son on walks. You get the idea.

Would you believe it if I told you that I wouldn’t trade that season for anything? (No, not because that season gave me my second son, though that is incredible…)

I wouldn’t trade that season because it exposed so many of the ways I looked for validation. What I mean by that, is it showed me all the things in life I was doing that made me feel like I was “good”, or “enough”. I believed that if I was *this* patient with my kids, or *that* kind to my husband, or *this* generous in my friendships, that I was good. I thought that being a Christian meant I loved and served others. Now of course, Christians often do do that, but that’s not what makes them a Christian. We are Christians because Jesus died for us. Because we needed a Savior and we have placed our faith in Jesus to make us right with God. We are good and we are enough before we even do anything, because Jesus covered all our our wrongdoings and insufficiencies by dying on the cross. He paid the penalty for all the times we fail.

I walked out of that season stronger than ever because I was more secure: I was secure in my faith and I was secure in the fact that I had value and worth even when all I could do was lay on the couch. Jesus used every ounce of that pain to expose what was really going on in my beliefs. He was willing to let health and happiness leave me in order to show me that he was all that I need.

(And just a little reminder that health and happiness are good things. Jesus spent so much of his ministry on earth showing us God’s character by healing and resurrecting people… but he did this in order to point them to himself as their savior. Good things are only good things until they get in the way of God. God is the ultimate thing we need, for both now and eternity.)

So, as I go on day seven of sickness, and as much as I desperately want to get better, there is this little glimmering hope inside me. I could even call it excitement. I believe that God allows trials to come to us so that he can produce something in us that is good—that builds our faith, our character, our life. He is the giver of life and good things! I know he will bring something good from this trial. Romans 8:28 secures that belief:

“For we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

I’m realizing this verse comes right after the scripture I mentioned earlier. Just for kicks, let’s look up the whole chunk. Below is Romans 8:22-28:

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

What an encouragement… this scripture tells me I must not be the only one groaning! ;) But seriously, we face hard things on this side of eternity. But it produces in us the hope that saves us. God uses our trials to build the one thing that truly saves us and makes us secure: our hope and faith in Jesus.

**Was this an encouragement to you? Or might it encourage someone you know? Feel free to share or comment below!