“Buy the lie that your life is supposed to be heaven on earth, and suffering can be a torturous hell. But life is suffering, and suffering is but the cross to bear, part of earth’s topography to cross on our way to heaven. The question isn’t ‘Why is there suffering in my life?’ But ‘Why wouldn’t there be suffering?’ Because such is life in a broken world. The question is ‘What WAY will you bear your suffering?’” (Ann Voscamp #waymakerbook)

I think it was the singer Nightbirde who said that the question shouldn’t be why bad things happen to good people, but why do good things happen to us at all? I catch myself at times with a kind of entitlement mentality where I expect only good to happen to me, only comfort and never any suffering of any kind.

But transformation only happens through suffering. You know about the caterpillar struggling to become a butterfly, and how if you were to cut open the cocoon, the butterfly would have no strength to fly.

If we were truly good and had no sin nature, our growth could be easy and painless. But since we are living with that sin nature and our natural bent is not toward good and God, then the process is painful and slow, like constantly swimming against the current.

Ultimately, Jesus suffered, so why should we expect to find an easy life? Why should we automatically seek comfort as the main goal of life? Also, seeking pain and suffering is not a healthy mentality. We should seek God and accept what that path brings us, whether joy or sorrow, comfort or pain.

Even in the worst of suffering, we can know that God is with us in the midst of it just as He was with Shadrach, Abednego, and Mishach in the middle of the fiery furnace. To go through pain with God is so much better than to walk through all the comforts and pleasures without Him, because He is the ultimate source of all our hearts desire.