Hope in SufferingSample

Intro:

To say that the entire world is suffering right now is not an understatement. Hundreds of thousands have been affected in various ways by the pandemic that has taken over life as we know it. The future will look different for some because of what is happening across the globe right now – that is the reality. 

Uncertainty, anxiety, and fear have the potential to overwhelm us every day, if we let them. Those are natural feelings, and we cannot pretend like they don’t exist. But if we stop there and allow them to rule over us, we are letting the enemy gain a foothold in our life. This enemy will use every opportunity to steal, kill, and destroy, and fear is one of his favorite tools. 

So what if instead we take to heart the words the Bible teaches over and over again, “Fear not”?  What if we live knowing that we are not fighting for victory but from victory? What if we choose to lean not on own understanding or our own strength (Proverbs 3:5), but into the One who has already overcome (John 16:33)? 

And what if we instead embraced the hardships of life as an opportunity to not only know Jesus better, but to become more like Him along the way? That is the opportunity in front of us now. And so “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 5:3-5