How Suffering Glorifies God

Just a few weeks ago, my aunt passed away after living many years with physical handicaps. She was a lovely lady. My first memories of her are when she and my uncle returned from India on furlough. They served as missionaries there for several years, then they returned to Canada where my uncle served as an evangelist and then as a pastor. In 1984, my aunt was at home alone while my uncle was away on a preaching tour. That day a man attacked my aunt, brutally beating her with a hammer and leaving her senseless. My uncle found her lying unconscious in their home when he returned. She had multiple skull fractures and serious injuries. We thought she wouldn’t make it, but she survived — but with handicaps. Her motor skills impaired, her personality altered, but her love for the Lord remained. She still ministered to others in her altered condition. Her retention of Scripture passages remained, she could recite chapters and often did. She remained a blessing. In her last years, she lived in a care home, and continued to bless her visitors when they came.

From 1984 to 2021 is thirty-seven years. One might wonder why God allowed my aunt to live out her years in this condition? Why did she suffer? What purpose did she fill? Of course, such questions rise in the face of any suffering. It is an age-old problem, causing many to rage against God and refuse to bow in faith at His altar.

I am preaching through 1 Peter. Just started it a few weeks ago, and have worked slowly through his opening sentence, from 1 Pt 1.3-12 — all one sentence in the Greek. Peter is blessing God for the wonders of salvation. Amid this expansive blessing comes these clauses:

^{1 Pt 1.6} Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: ⁷ 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:

Manifold temptations (“various trials” NASB) — every life knows trials, and some lives know them more extensively and deeper than others. The text begins “wherein ye greatly rejoice” — the “wherein” refers back to the new birth. We greatly rejoice — “jubilate” — in our salvation, even though we are distressed by our trials.

Why do we rejoice? We have a purpose. “That the trial of your faith” is a purpose statement. Here Peter doesn’t mean “trial” in the sense of suffering, but in the sense of quality testing, but not just the testing itself, the successful testing. In other words, “tried and found perfect,” or, as the NET puts it, “Such trials show the proven character of your faith.”

He compares our faith to gold, but says faith is better than gold, even gold that is purified by fire. It is better than gold because the purpose of our sufferings is so that our testing “might be found unto praise and honour and glory.” The idea is this: our sufferings prove the glory of God in saving us. One reason God allows suffering, and allows some of his saints to suffer long, is to show the glory of God to a great degree.

I found myself thinking about this after my aunt passed. How many long years she lived out her faith in a broken body. However, the glory of it all still waits for a future manifestation, for the text says in full: “might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” By faith, I believe my aunt is now whole before the Lord, rejoicing in His presence. I haven’t seen it yet, though. At the appearing of Jesus Christ, when He brings His saints with Him, what will we see? We will see saints who endured much suffering, appearing with him whole, more alive than they ever were on earth, no longer hampered by infirmities, frailties, and suffering. We will see them bringing credit — “praise and honour and glory” — to His name, for He redeemed them.

Last week, we ran an article by Shelly Hamilton. She writes movingly about her care for Ron, who everyone in our circle knows. I thought about Ron as I thought about this passage also. I remember when he went through the crisis with his eye, how we all prayed in the dorms for him, and hearing the news that he had lost the eye. That suffering produced arguably Ron’s best loved song, Rejoice in the Lord. I remember some months later, maybe a year later when Ron sang that song for an evening service at the BJU Bible Conference. I don’t know if it was the first time he song it, but I remember the hush that came over the crowd as he sang.

These last years, our brother is experiencing a new kind of suffering, perhaps more profound than that first trial with his eye. He and his family are experiencing the trials to prove the soundness of faith so that it might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” As they experience these things, the words of Ron’s song no doubt are filled with deeper meaning for them now than they were when Ron wrote them:

God never moves without purpose or plan
When trying His servant and molding a man.
Give thanks to the Lord though your testing seems long:
In darkness He giveth a song.

O rejoice in the Lord. He makes no mistake.
He knoweth the end of each path that I take.
For when I am tried and purified,
I shall come forth as gold.

What trials are you facing? No trial is easy. In this life, it can seem senseless and wearying. My aunt’s thirty-seven-year trial came to an end a few days ago. She is at the end of the path. What do you think? For her, the rejoicing is now.

For us, the time of praise and honour and glory is coming. Let’s rejoice in our salvation (notice Peter doesn’t say we rejoice in the trial!). Let’s rejoice in our salvation because the glory of God is there, and let’s continue to serve our Lord day by day until Jesus comes.

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Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.

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Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash