Depending on which linguistic corner of the world you grew up in the English language can either be hard or easy to learn. English can be down right confusing.
Take oxymorons, for example. An oxymoron is when words of contradictory meaning are put together. For example: Clearly misunderstood. Act natural. Only choice. Found missing. Pretty ugly. Original copy.
Like an oxymoron, St. Paul also puts together words of contradictory meaning. “More than that, rejoice in our sufferings, know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,… (Romans 5:3-4)” Rejoice in our sufferings?? How can rejoicing and suffering go together?
No one in their sane mind likes to suffer. How dare suffering interrupt my claim to perfect happiness.
But what if our thinking is askew – out of whack? If God needs to counter the wisdom of our age, and how we are steeped in it, what is going to shake us from self-sufficiency? Struggle and times of suffering. Think of yourself as an egg or a potato. Plunged into boiling water, if you are an egg your affliction will make you hard-boiled and unresponsive. If you are a potato, you will emerge soft and pliable, resilient and adaptable.
When the boiling water of testing comes our way, it is Jesus’ intention that we would be soft to His care, pliable to His will, and resilient to the forces of hardship or evil. This happens when God draws us to see purpose in suffering only when we cling to Him.
God does not want us to rejoice in suffering so that we enjoy pain and hardship. Nor does God want us to suffer, in that we believe life is only about living with less. God brings suffering to yield better things in us, more things in us – that being, endurance, character and hope.
You become pliable within your Master’s hands; shaped to be tools within His world. Through and through, you become resilient. Hope stirs your hearts to be strong, bold, and courageous. Hope endures adversity. While waiting confidently for deliverance, the Holy Spirit is present within you. Justified in the blood of Jesus, know that you always have God’s protection and help.
Horatio Spafford was an attorney who excelled in business investments in Chicago until the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. He lost all of his properties, all of his investments.
He endeavored and started over. But, feeling there was need for a pause, a restful intermission in life, he and his wife decided (along with their four daughters) to leave for a couple months and get some perspective in Europe. When the time came to board the ship, there was a zoning problem with some property. Horatio decided to stay behind a few days. No problem, he’d catch the next ship.
It is now a famous telegraph. This ship with his wife and four daughters was hit by another ship. It went down. The telegram from his wife read: “Saved alone.” All four daughters died in that ship wreck.
A few weeks later he was on a second ship to meet his wife. At his request, the captain notified him when they were near the location where the two ships collided. As Horatio looked out over the ocean the Holy Spirit spoke love and hope to the depths of his hurt, his pain, his loss. He was led to compose these words to the hymn When Peace, like a River.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way;
When sorrows, like sea billows, roll;
Whetever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

He lives – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought;
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And, Lord, haste the day when our faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall descend
Even so it is well with my soul.

— Pastor Neil Stern
Grace Lutheran Church Edmonton