OCT 9 | The Spiritual Gift Nobody Wants: Embracing Suffering for Spiritual Growth
Why Every Christian Needs to Understand the Gift of Suffering
What if I told you that the Bible describes suffering as a spiritual gift? Not just something God permits, but something He actually grants to believers? It sounds counterintuitive—maybe even offensive. After all, when we take spiritual gifts assessments at church, we're looking for teaching abilities, encouragement, generosity, or leadership. Nobody checks the box that says, "Yes, I'd like the gift of suffering, please."
Yet the Apostle Paul, writing from a Roman prison cell, tells the Philippian church something remarkable: "It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him" (Philippians 1:29). The word "granted" isn't accidental—it's gift language. Paul is saying that suffering isn't merely tolerated by God; it's given by Him with purpose and intention.
This isn't the message you'll hear from prosperity preachers or find on inspirational coffee mugs. But it might be the most transformative truth in the New Testament for your spiritual growth and Christian maturity.
Understanding Biblical Suffering: What Paul Really Meant
To understand what Paul meant by calling suffering a "gift," we need to look at the original Greek. The word translated as "granted" is echaristhē, which comes from the same root as charis—the word for grace or gift. This isn't coincidental language. Paul is deliberately using vocabulary associated with divine favor and blessing.
When Paul wrote these words, he wasn't speaking theoretically from a comfortable position. He was chained to a Roman guard, having experienced beatings, shipwrecks, hunger, and constant rejection for his faith. The Philippian believers receiving this letter were also suffering—facing persecution, family division, loss of social status, and economic hardship for following Jesus.
So when Paul calls suffering a "gift," he's not being insensitive or detached from reality. He's speaking from lived experience, offering a radically different perspective on hardship that can only come from someone who has walked through the fire and discovered something valuable on the other side.
Why We Resist the Gift of Suffering
Our resistance to viewing suffering as a gift is understandable. Western Christianity, in particular, has been heavily influenced by prosperity theology and comfort-seeking culture. We've been conditioned to believe that God's primary goal is our happiness, that faith should make life easier, and that suffering indicates either a lack of faith or God's displeasure.
We love spiritual gifts when they make us feel special, when they make ministry easier, when people notice and affirm our abilities. But suffering? That's the gift that strips away our illusions about why we're really following Jesus. It asks the uncomfortable question: Are you following Christ because of what you get from Him, or because of who He is?
This is where the rubber meets the road in Christian discipleship. It's easy to follow Jesus when He's multiplying bread and fish, healing the sick, and drawing crowds. It's much harder to follow Him to Gethsemane and Calvary.
The Biblical Case for Redemptive Suffering
The New Testament doesn't shy away from the reality of Christian suffering. In fact, it repeatedly presents suffering as an expected and even necessary component of authentic faith.
Jesus Himself told His disciples in John 16:33, "In this world you will have trouble." Not "might have trouble" or "could possibly face difficulties if you're unlucky." Will. It's a certainty. But He immediately follows with the reason we can face it: "But take heart! I have overcome the world."
The Apostle James writes, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance" (James 1:2-4). The word "consider" here—hēgēsasthe in Greek—means to thoughtfully evaluate, like an accountant examining a ledger. James isn't asking us to fake happiness or deny pain. He's asking us to do the math: What does this path actually produce?
Paul develops this theme further in Romans 5:3-5: "We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit."
Notice the progression: suffering → perseverance → character → hope. Each stage is necessary for the next. You can't skip steps. There's no microwave version of spiritual maturity.
Understanding Perseverance: More Than Just Waiting
The Greek word for perseverance in Romans 5 is hypomonē, and it's crucial to understand what this really means. This isn't passive waiting or gritting your teeth until hard times pass. It's active endurance—staying under the weight, continuing to move forward even when everything in you wants to quit.
Think of a weightlifter holding a heavy bar overhead. Their muscles are shaking, their whole body is straining, but they don't drop the weight. That's hypomonē. It's not about having superhuman strength; it's about refusing to give up when giving up would be easier.
This kind of perseverance can't be manufactured in a classroom or learned from a book. It's forged in the fires of real-world difficulty. It develops when you keep showing up to pray even when heaven seems silent, when you continue to serve even when you're exhausted, when you choose obedience even when you can't see the outcome.
Character Formation Through Trials
Perseverance produces character—dokimē in Greek, which refers to proven quality. It's the same word used for metal that has been tested by fire, with all impurities burned away. What remains is real, solid, authentic.
Here's the truth that our comfort-seeking culture doesn't want to hear: The character that gets forged in hard seasons can't be obtained any other way. There's no shortcut to depth. There's no express lane to spiritual maturity. The qualities that make someone truly trustworthy, genuinely compassionate, and deeply wise are almost always developed through difficulty.
Think about the people in your life who have the most depth, who offer the wisest counsel, who carry the most authentic faith. Chances are, they've walked through some valleys. They've experienced loss, disappointment, or pain that refined them in ways easy living never could.
This is why God doesn't always remove our difficulties when we pray for relief. Sometimes—often—He's doing something deeper than we can see. He's building something in us that we couldn't get any other way.
Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Eugene Peterson coined the phrase "a long obedience in the same direction" (actually borrowing it from Friedrich Nietzsche and applying it to Christian discipleship). This concept is countercultural in our age of instant gratification, life hacks, and quick fixes.
We want transformation in thirty days. We want five easy steps to spiritual growth. We want the microwave version of everything, including sanctification.
But spiritual formation is slow. It's repetitive. It's showing up on ordinary days when nothing feels special and doing the next right thing anyway. It's what Paul means when he tells Timothy to "endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 2:3).
Soldiers don't get to choose their battles. They don't serve only when it's convenient or comfortable. They sign up knowing some days will be brutal, some missions will be dangerous, and the path won't always be clear. But they stay committed to the mission regardless.
This is the kind of endurance God is building in us through suffering. Not the ability to avoid hard things, but the capacity to remain faithful through them.
The Already-But-Not-Yet Tension
Understanding suffering also requires grasping one of the central tensions in New Testament theology: the "already but not yet" nature of God's kingdom. Jesus inaugurated the kingdom of God with His first coming, but it won't be consummated until His second coming. We live between the ages.
We're saved, but we're still being saved. We have victory, but we still have battles. We've been given the Holy Spirit as a deposit, but we're still waiting for the fullness of what's to come.
Suffering is a reminder that we're living in this in-between time. Every hard season, every unanswered prayer, every moment when we cry out "Where are you, God?" is evidence that we're homesick for a home we've never seen. We were made for a world where suffering doesn't exist, where every tear is wiped away, where death and pain and mourning are no more.
The gift of suffering is that it keeps us from settling for less than God's best. It reminds us that this world, as beautiful as it can be, is not our final destination. It keeps our eyes fixed on eternity rather than getting too comfortable with temporal things.
Practical Application: Transforming How We Pray
So what does this mean practically? How do we live in light of this truth?
First, it transforms how we pray in difficult seasons. Instead of only praying "God, take this away" (which is a legitimate prayer—Jesus prayed for the cup to pass), we can also pray "God, what are you teaching me through this? What are you building in me that I couldn't get any other way?"
This isn't about denying pain or faking gratitude. Jesus wept. He prayed in agony. God doesn't ask us to be stoic or emotionless. But He does ask us to trust that He's good, even when life isn't. Even when nothing makes sense.
Second, it changes how we view our hard seasons in hindsight. When you look back at your life, can you identify times when you were being refined in ways you couldn't see at the moment? Seasons that felt like waste at the time but produced growth you now value?
Third, it helps us support others who are suffering. When we understand that God works through difficulty, we can offer something deeper than platitudes or quick fixes. We can sit with people in their pain while holding hope that God is present and working, even when He feels absent.
The Hope That Sustains Us
Here's the beautiful conclusion to Paul's progression in Romans 5: Character produces hope. And this hope, Paul says, "does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit."
This isn't wishful thinking. This isn't crossing our fingers and hoping things work out. This is confident expectation based on the character of God and His proven faithfulness.
When you've walked through suffering and seen God sustain you, when perseverance has been built into your spiritual bones, when your character has been refined through fire—you develop a different kind of hope. A resilient hope. A hope that can withstand disappointment because it's not based on circumstances but on the unchanging nature of God.
This is why Paul, sitting in chains, can write with joy about suffering being a gift. He's experienced this progression personally. He knows where it leads. And from his perspective, the destination is worth the journey.
Your Next Step
The spiritual gift nobody wants is actually the gift we need most. Not because suffering itself is good—it's not. Sin, death, and suffering are enemies that Jesus came to defeat. But because God, in His sovereignty and love, can take even the worst things and transform them into something redemptive.
So here's your challenge this week: What's the hard thing you're in right now? The situation you've been praying would just end?
What if God's not absent in that? What if He's actually doing something deeper than you can see?
Try reframing your prayers. Keep praying for relief—that's honest and appropriate. But also ask God what He's building in you. Ask Him to give you eyes to see His purposes, even when you can't feel His presence.
And then keep showing up. Keep taking the next step of obedience, even when you don't feel like it. Keep doing the next right thing. Because that's the long obedience in the same direction. That's the path that leads somewhere. That's how perseverance becomes character, and character becomes hope.
God has never wasted a single hard season of anyone who trusted Him through it. Your suffering isn't meaningless. Your endurance isn't invisible. And the work He's doing in you through this difficult time will bear fruit—fruit that remains, fruit that you couldn't produce any other way.
The gift nobody wants is the gift that transforms us into the image of Christ. And in the end, that's the greatest gift of all.
An Invitation to go Deeper….
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