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November 5, 2026 • 3 Minute Read
Suffering is the Expectation, not the Exception
Suffering is the Expectation, not the Exception “It is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” -Acts 14:22 Suffering is often avoided as much as possible. Have a headache? Take some medicine. Have a bad day? Binge some Netflix. Don’t know what to do about the future? Spend time doomscrolling until you fall asleep. In every circumstance of life, we generally want to make it as comfortable as possible. But what if discomfort is the way to grow? I am not anti-medicine. I am not even anti-entertainment to help your brain get space to process. But I do think we often forget that growth takes discomfort. Think about a skill you learned. Playing the guitar, riding a bike, driving a car, painting. You have endure the discomfort of not knowing what to do in order to get to the place of growth. You have to endure the blisters on your fingers. The ability to visualize your goal without the ability to get there. You have to face the fear of messing up in order to finally learn. It is no different in God’s Kingdom. Look at the King. Jesus said, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”(Matt. 8:20) Jesus’s whole life was one filled with suffering. The pain of losing Joseph at a young age. Having to take over providing for His earthly family. He had to spend His life basically homeless and a nomad, relying on the generosity of others for somewhere to sleep and something to eat. Not to mention being left by those who He had spent years teaching and loving, being betrayed by one of His closest friends, and being killed on a cross. In all of that suffering, He displayed the unwelcomeness of the Kingdom of God in this world. When we follow the King, we will suffer. Not because God doesn’t care. But because we belong to a Kingdom that has a different ethic. We love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us. We seek out those the world casts out. We welcome the broken, the addict, the hurting, and lost. Because that is who we were before Christ saved us. The troubles of life are necessary. Why? Because those who belong to an eternal Kingdom will always suffer in the world of temporal problems. We long for life everlasting. The world is filled with death. We long for the peace of Jesus. The world is filled with war. We long for the marriage supper of the Lamb. The world is filled with spiritual famine. As we live in this earth… the question isn’t, “will we suffer?” it is, “how will we suffer?” “For it has been granted to you on Christ’s behalf not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him.” (Phi. 1:29) Suffer well. Knowing that it will demonstrate to the world that there is hope. Not found in escaping suffering. But found in the imitation of the suffering Servant. And know that Christ will reward all those who suffer for Him with the greatest gift. Himself. Grace and peace.
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