Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
1 Peter 5:8-10
There are days when it seems like nothing is going right, and there are days when we wonder if it ever will. There are days when, like Job, we long for an opportunity to lay out our case before God and get an explanation from Him as to why we are enduring hardship and suffering. “Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God” (Job 13:3). Yet even when we cannot understand the reason for our suffering, we can be certain that God has not forgotten us. We live in a fallen world, and we have an enemy who delights in bringing suffering into our lives. Sometimes our difficulties are the consequences of our own choices, but other times they come through no fault of our own. In either case, God’s grace is sufficient.
An important truth to remember in our moments of difficulty is that every trial has a limit. Peter reminds us that our suffering is only “for a while,” but the glory to which God has called us is eternal. A. W. Tozer wrote, “What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. We must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring.” Our trials may be painful, and we may not understand why God allows them, but they are never beyond His ability to sustain us. The God of all grace is working even through our suffering to strengthen and establish us. We can trust our loving Father even during seasons of suffering.
