Life with Christ will not be pain-free. This is a prominent theme throughout Scripture. First, let’s just acknowledge how abnormal it is to embrace such a life.
When traveling from point A to point B, we enter the destination into our navigation system, expecting it will provide us with the shortest route. The one with the least amount of traffic and road construction. When we are moving toward something positive — adopting a child, for example — we pray against obstacles and roadblocks. And this is a reasonable request. But following Jesus may mean laying aside our obsession with productivity, efficiency, and timeliness. As we wind our way through each detour and trial, the lessons learned may be more valuable to God’s heart than the outcome ever was.
As much as it pains me to quote Miley Cyrus, she kind of had it right. “Ain’t about how fast I get there / Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side / It’s the climb.”1
Along with Miley, someone else knew this well and wrote about it. In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul encouraged the Christians in light of the trials and tribulations they were facing.
The church during this time was experiencing mistreatment at the hands of the Roman government, and storm clouds on the horizon signaled this would soon become full-scale persecution when Nero became emperor. Paul’s teaching for Christians in Rome is as relevant today as it was when he wrote these words:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces 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. — Romans 5:1-5
Notice from the outset that Paul is not telling us the secret to living a trouble-free life, or how to avoid trouble when we see it coming. He is addressing the attitude we should adopt in the midst of suffering.
My normal response to anything hard is to figure out how to get out of it. Is there an easier way to fix the leaky shower than ripping up the entire tile floor? Must I really apologize to that person I offended? God of mercy and grace, do I really have to go to jury duty? While we’re focused on finding the way around a trial, God is more concerned with how we live by faith through it.
He knows what’s at stake, how the struggle can make our character more like Christ’s.
Our Trials Are a Means to an End
As we continue to read the opening verses of Romans 5, we sense it is building to a climactic conclusion. And it is. Paul wrote to remind us of the joy we can now experience, the access we have to God, and the hope we have received through faith.
But we quickly learn that our hope is the result of a process of endurance.
It’s as if we’re watching The Price Is Right, and we’ve made it all the way to the grand Showcase Showdown. Drew Carey is listing off all the wonderful items in the showcase: the new surround-sound entertainment system, the new washer-and-dryer combo, and a pair of matching Jet Skis. But then, as the excitement mounts to the grand prize, which is almost always “a brand new car!” the host instead announces, “Your grand prize is a month of cleaning restrooms at the rest stops along the interstate of your choice!” I say this tongue in cheek, of course.
Sure, it is amazing to think about what God has for us through Christ, but Paul made it sound as though the capstone, the grand prize of the Christian life, is embracing tribulations!
But God is not the author of evil, nor is He a masochistic deity who delights in the suffering of his children. What Paul was describing here is the hard road God sometimes allows His children to walk because it is the only way to become what God created us to become. This journey is the means to producing Christ’s character in us. And so Paul tells us, “We rejoice in our sufferings,” not because we are crazy. Not because we have a sadistic martyr complex. Paul said it’s because
suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. — Romans 5:3-4
Let’s consider, briefly, those four words — suffering, endurance, character, and hope — and how this progression works.
