Sorrow Into Joy

The Christian life is not for sissies. God’s uses broken people to heal. He uses tragedy to produce comedy. He uses the weak things of the world to abase the strong. He uses trial to produce perseverance. He uses suffering to enhance joy. He uses death to produce Resurrection. In order to understand what God is doing in the world and subsequently what God is doing in your own marriage, in your own church and in your own home and life, you have to understand this principle. God desires that we suffer and often that we suffer deeply. This is part of what it means to enter into the sufferings of Christ. But like Christ, who despised the shame for the joy that was set before Him, we have learned through our own suffering, that the joy on the other side is inversely proportional to the pain of sorrow.