'The furnace of suffering
The furnace of suffering
"Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward." Job 5:7
"Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows." John 16:33
The real goal of pain, is not just to endure the suffering that comes into our life, to bear it bravely, without wincing, to pass through it patiently, even rejoicing in it. Pain has a higher mission to us than to teach us heroism.
We should endure pain, seeking the blessing of it — a message from God which we should not fail to hear.
It lifts the veil hiding God's face for us, and we glimpse His beauty every time we are called to suffer.
Pain is like a furnace fire , and we should come out of it always with the gold of our character gleaming a little more brightly.
Every experience of suffering ought in some way . . .
to lift us nearer God,
to make us more gentle and loving, and
to leave the image of Christ shining a little clearer in our lives.
"I have refined you, but not as silver is refined.
Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering ." Isaiah 48:10