Not only that, but 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.
What have you gotten from suffering? What has suffering done for you or produced in your life? I’m not talking about inconveniences like mean cashiers at your formerly-favorite restaurant or your favorite team losing. I’m talking about the kind of suffering that keeps you up all night, tears apart your soul, and wrings your heart dry of all of its tears.
Maybe these times of life have robbed you of joy. Maybe they have produced a brokenness inside of you that keeps you from loving like you used to. Perhaps a season that looked like suffering quieted a song in your heart.
Somehow, Paul asserts in this passage that suffering can go through some kind of process that ends in hope. This does not make sense in the natural.* Suffering at the hand of an enemy is usually intended to destroy.
Paul suggests that suffering produces endurance (independent, unyielding perseverance in the face of aggressive misfortune).* This endurance produces that which remains after testing (like a refining fire).* Those things that are left over inside of us produce hope.
The late Grant R. Osborne points out:
Hope makes it possible to endure, and at the same time the process of enduring and the godly character it produces increases our hope by making us continually reflect on the future realities guaranteed by God. So the four—sufferings, perseverance, character, hope—interrelate and define the Christian approach to life in this world.*
When has hope disappointed you? If you are like me, you have thought that you were putting your hope in God, but really you were putting your hope in what might come from God’s hand in a particular timeframe. The difference is crucial. God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s timeline is not always our timeline. When we put our hope in God and what He has done and the future realities of that which is guaranteed (those things that He has told us about), then our hope will not put us to shame. Putting our hope in Him is putting our hope in His character and His love for us. Putting our hope in what might come from His hand puts God in a very small box of possibility (at least in our minds).
How do we know this to be true? How do we know that our hope in Him will not be put to shame? The proof is in the Holy Spirit, given to us as a conduit of God’s love poured out into our hearts.
Amazing isn’t it? God can use suffering inflicted upon us by an enemy who seeks to destroy and use it for our good and our hope instead of destruction. Amazing!
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to endure. Perhaps God wants you to turn your hopes from what He may do to Him. Maybe today God wants you to reflect upon those things that are guaranteed because He has said them.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.
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*Kruse, C. G. (2012). Paul’s Letter to the Romans (D. A. Carson, Ed.; p. 229-232). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos.
Osborne, G. R. (2004). Romans (pp. 129–132). InterVarsity Press;
Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 220–221). W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.
Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (p. 171–172). Zondervan Publishing House.