God has a purpose in every problem.
He uses problems to draw us closer to him.
Your most profound intimate experience of worship with God will likely be during the darkest period of your life; when the pain is most, when you run out of options, when there is no other alternative.
That is when we pray our most authentic and heartfelt prayer of dedication.
When life is rosy, we may slide by with knowing about Jesus, with imitating and quoting him.
Only in suffering do we know him.
Problems forces us to look to God and depend on him instead of ourselves.
We will never know that God is all we need until God is all we've got.
According to him, No matter the cause, nothing can happen to us without the Lord's will.
Whatever happened to a Christian is father filtered and he intends to use it for good.
Because God is sovereign, tragedies are just incidents in God's good plan for us.
There are different reasons why people suffer.
In some cases the cause is clear - the actions of others, our own mistakes or fault.
But in other cases, such as natural disasters or illness, there is no answer.
Different religions teach different things about suffering.
Some see it as a payment for past sins, others as the will of God.
Our religious practices can sometimes be just an insurance policy against suffering.
Suffering is never easy to go through.
In some cases, we recognize that good parents allow their children to mature by letting them face the consequences of some of their actions or those of others.
This can help us appreciate why God allows us to face certain situations.
But there will always be times when we ask, 'Why me?' and do not have an answer.
Are there any 'benefits' in suffering? Suffering can teach us perseverance; it can prepare us to help others.
It can test our hearts, like Job: will we worship God no matter what the circumstances? It is easy to ignore God in the 'good times' and only turn to Him in the bad times.
People often sense God's help when they suffer, for example in answered prayer, or incidents that confirm that God is with them.
God gives special strength to enable people to handle their suffering, and gives peace in the midst of turmoil.
Many times our faith wavers in accusation against God.
God does not condemn our moments of despair and unbelief, he himself set the tone by diving into the earth and enduring cruel, senseless suffering.
Before the final moment, his own son asked if the cup could pass from him and on the cross he cried out.
"God why have you forsaken me? God asks for hope in spite of hopeless surroundings, when suffering bleeds us.
He asks us not to reject, but to respond to him as children, trusting in his wisdom and affirming as however deep the pit, God's love is deeper still.
To those who have had to endure a terrible tragedy or loss, you can choose to either wallow in self-pity or turn the situation around.
You have to choose between allowing the situation drag you down or you rise above the painful experience.
It is a choice only you have to make.
The whole of creation backs whatever decision you make.
I encourage you to make a silver lining around the cloud of your life.
It is the fire of suffering that brings forth the gold of godliness.
Many would wonder why God allowed them to suffer so many trials, despite the fact that they have been faithful in their service to him.
Well, we should as well ask if he desired the Nazi regime or the death of his own son.
Such a question defies answer.
Obviously, because of his character, he could not desire such atrocities, yet he chose not to prevent them.
It helps me to visualize providence as a forward-looking doctrine.
The emphasis I see is not to look backward and find out if God is responsible in order to accuse him.
In answering Job, he completely ignored that issue.
The emphasis is rather on looking ahead to what God can make of a seeming tragedy.
Job, the archetypal sufferer, received a personal visit from God who spoke to him out of a whirlwind.
The reply to Job is the longest single speech attributed to God in the Bible.
What could God say to Job? He might have laid a gentle hand on is head and told him how much he would grow in personhood through his trial or he could have given a lecture on the value of pain, warning Job how much worse his life would have been if he had Hensen's disease!.
God did nothing of these, he simply reminded Job of the wonders of nature.
What a time for a nature appreciation course when Job was in a great despair.
His words hit Job with devastating power.
"Stand up like a man and brace yourself for battle.
" He demanded.
"Let me ask you a question, and give me the answer.
Are you going to discredit my justice and condemn me, so that you can say you are right? Are you as strong as God, and can you shout as loudly as he?" Job 40 Vs 1-23.
Job's response was an overwhelmed, repentant surrender.
"I know that you can do anything and that no one can stop you.
I was talking about things I knew nothing about and did not understand things too wonderful for me.
"Does God answer the question of suffering in Job? Not directly.
He avoids a logical, point by point explanation.
Why, then, the accusing tone? What does God want from Job?" Job 42 Vs1-6.
Simply an admission of trust.
Pain turn us to God.
This is probably the most accurate, succinct summary of the role of suffering in life.
To the non- Christian, the message is a warning to consider other values in life and turn to God who offers eternity.
To the Christian, the message is to turn to God in trust, as a child to a parent.
Christians are not insulated from the tragedies of this world, just as Jesus was not.
God never promised that tornadoes would skip our houses on the way to our pagan neighbors'.
Rather, Peter could say to suffering Christians, "This suffering is all part of the work God has given you.
Christ, who suffered for you, is your example.
Follow in his steps.
Indicating that suffering can be, not a horror to be shed at all cost, but a means of grace to make us more like God.
At the instant of pain, it may seem impossible to imagine that good can come.
It must have seemed so to Christ at Gethsemane.
It is never clear to us how suffering or evil can be transformed into a cause for celebration.
But that is what we are asked to believe.
The mystery of suffering is a Christian paradox.
Pain jostles with triumph and rubs elbows with despair.
Christians in the worst prison of suffering can still hear and believe Christ's words: I Have Overcome The World.
John 16:33.
Also, death is not the end of human existence.
The body dies and decays, but the soul of man lives on in eternity.
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.
I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity.
This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal.
God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life is not going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: you are in one now, you are just coming out of one, or you are getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than he is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that is not the goal of life.
The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.