Endurance in Intense Suffering

"My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever."
Psalm 73:26 NLT

The ability for moss to grow defies logic.  How can something so green and beautiful grow in impossible places without roots?  Moss thrives on rocks and other surfaces where growth seems impossible.  In short, moss excels at enduring through unlikely circumstances.  Through years of intense physical suffering, I have learned that God can also sustain and give me strength to endure despite seemingly impossible situations.  

In the midst of suffering, I simply want to survive another day, another hour, yea, another minute!  I want to endure. But I need to bear in mind one crucial lesson; I can’t endure on my own strength.  I have both succeeded and failed in relying on God’s strength.  I can attest that the simplest way to endure on His strength is to cling to Him.  Hold onto Him with everything I have, despite the pain.  Make a determined effort of my will to trust Him, even when I don’t understand and can’t possibly grasp why!  

In addition to trusting and clinging to Him, three truths, among many others, have given me strength to endure.  First, God loves me.  Second, He is Sovereign.  Third, I have a limited, temporary perspective. 

 If God loves me, then all His plans for me are for my best, even suffering.  I may not be able to comprehend nor understand how pain can involve any good for me or benefit me in any way.  Jeremiah 29:11, a well known verse, warrants being quoted here.  “'For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,' saith the Lord, 'thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.'”  The Amplified Bible says, “'For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’”  Because God truly loves me no harm will ever enter my life.  

'For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'

​Knowing He is Sovereign encouraged me that nothing is out of His control.  In His Sovereignty, He holds it all, even suffering and pain.  Nothing is beyond His grasp.  John 10:28-29 comforted me.  “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.  My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”  Also Isaiah 49:16, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually before me.”  Nothing, not even pain and suffering, can pluck me out of His hands.

Drawing strength from realizing I have a limited, temporary perspective came later in my suffering. God is the only One who has a perfect, eternal perspective.  My lack of understanding based on my viewpoint doesn’t make any of God’s Truth’s false.  I can’t possibly grasp how my suffering will reap an eternal glory.  In the midst of suffering, I am being made into the image of Christ.  Being formed in the crucible of suffering is very painful indeed.  But what price can be put on being formed into the likeness of Christ?  What value can be placed on faith strengthened in Him?  Peter says in I Peter 1:6-8, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:  that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:  Whom having not seen, ye love; in Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”  What encouraging words of Truth!

I can’t begin to tell you why you are suffering right now. But I know God loves you, He is Sovereign and has good plans for you.  He is working you into His image.  If I can encourage you in any way today, allow me to say “DON’T GIVE UP!”  Cling to Jesus.  Trust Him.  Hold onto Him.  He will carry you through this dark storm, I promise!  BeStrong, Friend!