Episode Details

John 16:33 reminds believers that hardship is not an exception to the Christian life but an expected part of living in a fallen world. In this devotional, Deidre Braley explores the tension many Christians feel between wanting to avoid suffering and God's invitation to trust Him through it. While our natural instinct is often to run from pain, Scripture teaches that trials can become powerful tools God uses to shape our faith, deepen our dependence on Him, and strengthen our character.

Highlights

• Jesus promised believers would face trouble in this world.
• Many people spend significant energy trying to avoid suffering and discomfort.
• God uses trials to develop perseverance, character, and hope.
• Christian growth often happens through difficulties rather than ease.
• Suffering does not mean God has abandoned His people.
• The Holy Spirit strengthens believers through seasons of hardship.
• Trusting God in adversity helps replace fear with faith.
• Christ's victory over the world gives believers lasting hope in every circumstance.

Join the Conversation

Have you experienced a time when God reminded you that He saw your pain, needs, or circumstances? How does knowing that God is El Roi—the God who sees you—change the way you approach difficult seasons?

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Full Transcript Below:

Learning to Glory in Our Sufferings (When We’d Rather Run from Them)
By Deidre Braley

Bible Reading:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33 NIV

Poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to his young protege, “People have… oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything that is alive holds to it” (Letters to a Young Poet, W.W. Norton & Company, 1934, pg. 41).

And earlier this week, over morning coffee and as simply as could be, my husband said, “Good things happen every day, and bad things happen every day. That’s just the way it goes.”

So I took a long walk, mulling those thoughts over, both Rilke’s and my husband’s.