2 Corinthians 1:4 (ESV)
Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be
able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we
ourselves are comforted by God.
Your pain often reveals God’s purpose for you. God never
wastes a hurt! If you’ve gone through a hurt, he wants you to help other people
going through that same hurt. He wants you to share it. God can use the
problems in your life to give you a ministry to others. In fact, the very thing
you’re most ashamed of in your life and resent the most could become your
greatest ministry in helping other people.
Who can better help somebody going through a bankruptcy
than somebody who went through a bankruptcy? Who can better help somebody
struggling with an addiction than somebody who’s struggled with an addiction?
Who can better help parents of a special needs child than parents who raised a
special needs child? Who can better help somebody who’s lost a child than
somebody who lost a child?
The very thing you hate the most in your life is what God
wants to use for good in your life.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 1, verses 4 and 6, “God
comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When we are
weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we
ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently
endure the same things”.
This is called redemptive suffering. Redemptive suffering
is when you go through a problem or a pain for the benefit of others.
This is what Jesus did. When Jesus died on the cross, he
didn’t deserve to die. He went through that pain for your benefit so that you
can be saved and go to Heaven.
There are many different causes for the problems, pains,
and suffering in your life. Sometimes the stuff that happens you bring on
yourself. When you make stupid decisions, then it causes pain in your life. If
you go out and overspend and buy things you can’t afford and presume on the
future, and then you go deeply in debt and lose your house, you can’t say,
“God, why did you let me lose my house?” You can’t blame God for your bad
choices.
But in some of your problems, you’re innocent. You’ve been
hurt by the pain, stupidity, and sins of other people. And some of the pain in
your life is for redemptive suffering. God often allows us to go through a
problem so that we can then help others.
Dear Lord, we pray that You would open our eyes when we
struggle so that we can use what we learned to help others. In the Name of Jesus,
Amen.
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