My strong, healthy, robust adult son was in a car wreck! He had numerous injuries, including broken vertebrae in his back. I watched the first time they tried to move him to put on a hard-shell cast and heard his intense screams of pain and agony. I can’t imagine anything more gut wrenching than seeing your child, no matter the age, suffer in excruciating pain.

We are living in a time where we’re watching many of our friends and family suffer, either physically or emotionally. Some have suffered for years, and the pain seems unrelenting. It is so hard to reconcile the love of Christ with such agony. But because of Adam’s sin we live in a fallen world, and as a result we must accept that in this world there will always be suffering.

That is one reason why this chapter in Romans is so encouraging! It begins in verse one by telling us that once we are in Christ there is no more condemnation, because Christ has already endured that condemnation for us on the cross. Then in verse 18 we read that regardless of the suffering we must endure in this world, it is nothing compared to the glory to be revealed to us in the next.

First Peter 5:10 states, “The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while.”

If your life is filled with suffering, you can rest in the promise of future glory. As a believer, we should try focus, not on the suffering, but on His promises! This does not mean we won’t feel the pain or that we can’t acknowledge it. What it means is that we have hope, because the day will come when the suffering in this present world will end and the glory we will experience will be so much better than anything we can imagine!

Are you suffering? Have you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior? Then you have hope! Romans 8:23 states:

“And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”

Our present suffering is nothing at all compared to the glory He will reveal to us later. That is our hope and our promise!

Questions to Ask Yourself

1. Do you ever feel hopeless? Is your suffering or that around you overwhelming? Because Christ came, we have hope! He has overcome the world, and He will reveal His glory to us. Trust in His promises!

Missions Prayer
Pray for creativity in strategy as our church considers opportunities to send mission journey teams, summer / semester / year-long missionaries / career missionaries. Pray for wisdom regarding where to send, how to connect and serve, and how to support.