Jamin Bradley

If anyone had told a younger me that the best way to become a stronger Christian is by going through suffering, I wouldn’t have believed them. It’s the hope of all human beings to live the good life, uninhibited by pain, difficulty, or drama. Suffering isn’t something anyone desires or runs toward.

But truth be told, nothing grows a Christian like suffering does. When you suffer, you don’t choose to follow God because he’s the obvious answer. No, you cry out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” and then you choose him anyways.

The developed Christian has to rise above their suffering to do the right thing. They don’t choose to forgive others when they’re good to them—they forgive them while they’re be nailed to a cross. They learn to cultivate joy when there’s little to have joy about. They choose to love when hate is knocking on their door. They have to fight the thoughts and visions that plague their mind, inviting them to think of the worst possible outcomes. They have to choose humility when all they want is to fight for themselves.

They have to develop new spiritual disciplines for their faith to survive. They have to pray after they’ve decided that prayer is pointless and that God is not listening. They have to hold dear to the sliver of light that the Spirit has shone them when the whole world seems nothing but darkness. They have to grow or their faith will die, and at the same time, they have to die so that their faith will grow.

We do not serve a God that likes to see us suffer. We do not serve a God that wants to see us suffer. We do not serve a God that who orchestrates the worst moments in our lives.

Rather, all suffering has a chance to become Miracle-Gro for the fruit of the Spirit. When the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control find a way to grow in environments we would have never expected them to grow, then they prove that they can grow anywhere.

We’ve all had friends whose faith was unable to survive the test of suffering. Indeed, the topic of suffering is easily one of the main theological conundrums that people leave the faith over. God is not surprised by this. That’s why Jesus told a whole parable about it. It’s easy to follow a prosperity gospel God—much harder to follow one who disciplines those he loves.

If you are able, receive these words from St. John of the Cross in his classic work, Dark Night of the Soul.

There is another reason why the soul has walked securely in this darkness, and this is because it has been suffering; for the road of suffering is more secure and even more profitable than that of fruition and action: first, because in suffering the strength of God is added to that of man, while in action and fruition the soul is practising its own weaknesses and imperfections; and second, because in suffering the soul continues to practise and acquire the virtues and become purer, wiser and more cautious.