A Bible verse about suffering:
“We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Romans 5:3-4
Before I had ever completely read the Bible, my favorite quote was from Horace: “Adversity elicits talents which, in otherwise fortuitous situations, remains dormant.” The gist of it is, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Truthfully, you never really know what you’re made of until you conquer a challenge. Without the challenge, there’s nothing to conquer. Actually, let me rephrase that; you don’t even need to conquer the challenge in order to grow. The simple fact of facing the challenge can stimulate growth.
As this verse tells us, suffering produces perseverance. Even if we’re unsuccessful in our challenges, that still provides growth of perseverance. That makes it that much harder for us to be defeated the next time.
I should get this verse tattooed somewhere, because it’s hard for me to remember to rejoice during my suffering. It’s very easy for me to become the sole attendant of my own pity party when things don’t go my way.
I like to say that I have a stubborn perseverance, but honestly, it’s probably just stubbornness. It only becomes perseverance when the outcome accomplishes our goal.
If you’ve been following along with the past posts on scripture, here’s the (random, by the way) outline that we’ve come up with:
Sufferings lead to
Perseverance, which leads to
Character, which leads to
Interestingly enough, it almost seems like there was some sort of a grand design that planned all of this out.
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