Hope Beyond Suffering
I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace.
(1 Peter 1:1–2)
Joseph Parker, a great preacher of yesteryear, once said to a group of aspiring young ministers, “Preach to the suffering and you will never lack a congregation. There is a broken heart in every pew.”
Truly, suffering is the common thread in all our garments.
This has been true since the beginning, when sin entered the world and Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden. It shouldn’t surprise us, therefore, that when the apostle Peter wrote his first letter to fellow believers scattered throughout much of Asia Minor he focused on the one subject that drew all of them together. Suffering. These people were being singed by the same flames of persecution that would take the apostle’s life in just a few years. Their circumstances were the bleakest imaginable. Yet Peter didn’t try to pump them up with positive thinking. Instead, he gently reached his hand to their chins and lifted their faces skyward—so they could see beyond their circumstances to their celestial calling.
The men and women Peter wrote to knew what it was like to be away from home, not by choice but by force. Persecuted for their faith, they had been pushed out into a world that was not only unfamiliar but hostile.
Peter wrote to encourage them to be good witnesses to their persecutors. It is so easy to read that. It is even easier to preach it. But it is extremely difficult to do it. If you have ever been mistreated, you know what a great temptation it is to retaliate, to defend yourself, to fight back, to treat the other person as he or she has treated you. Peter wants to encourage his fellow believers to put pain in perspective and find hope beyond their suffering.
A Prayer for Hope Beyond Suffering
Lord, give us grace to match our trials. Give us a sense of hope and purpose beyond our pain. And give us fresh assurance that we’re not alone, that Your plan has not been aborted though our suffering intensifies.
I ask this in the compassionate name of the Man of Sorrows who was acquainted with grief. Amen.
Taken from Hope Again by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 1996 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com
