We tend to only identify blessing as non-suffering. We think of health as a blessing and it is. We think of financial prosperity as a blessing, and it may be. But pleasure, prosperity, health, leisure, etc. have to be balanced with the reality that there is blessing to be found in suffering. If suffering enables us to have a deeper experience with God, is that not a blessing? If it draws me closer to God, is that not a good thing? We find an intimacy with God, and even fellow sufferers, that can be experienced in no other way. Paul said, “I know how to abound and I know how to be abased”. There is blessing in both.
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-11 (NASB)
