Eddie Byun

 

No matter what age we are, we will forever be students in life. For believers, of course we are in a school of discipleship with our Teacher and Savior Jesus Christ, but another school we will always keep going back to is the school of suffering. It seems that is the graduate level place where God educates and trains His people for true discipleship. In Acts 14:22, we read how Paul and Barnabas encourage the believers in Antioch with the words, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”

 

I realized that more than anything else, it is suffering that reveals the true condition and maturity of our faith. Faith can easily be hidden? and even ignored?in days of sunshine, but it is in our days of pain that the strength and stability of our faith is tested and shown for what it really is. A lie that the Western world has bought into is the mindset that becoming a Christian means living a pain-free, easy life. But Christianity is the way of the Cross and the Cross is a symbol of suffering and of death.

Suffering is a part of life, but it is a part of life that allows us to partake in the life of Christ. And it is a part of life where we realize the horror of sin (within us and within the world) and our desperate need of something (or someone) stronger and greater than our own frail lives. When we embrace suffering as partnership with Christ and when we no longer become bitter during these hard days, but instead learn to trust Him?no matter what?then we finally graduate to the next level of living and the next level of faith in the school of suffering. Instead of cursing the darkness, let us be a people who hope in the Light. Let us pray for greater faith, greater wisdom, and greater love during our seasons of suffering, so that Christ would always be our everything.