Suffering Is Never for Nothing

by Elisabeth Elliot

Suffering and love are inextricably bound up together. And love invariably means sacrifice.

Psalm 34:22, “None of them that trust in him shall be desolate” (kjv).

if God doesn’t always remove the feeling of loneliness, it is in order that every minute of every day, perhaps, I have something to offer up to Him and say, “Lord, here it is. I can’t handle this.”

the word ministry just means service. And service is a part of our offering to God.

moments to be offered to Jesus. Do the next thing.

Those who have most profoundly influenced my life are without exception people who have suffered because it has been in that very suffering that God has refined the gold, tempered the steel, molded the pot, broken the bread and made that person into something that feeds a multitude—of whom I have been one of the beneficiaries.

What’s happening in your life today? Is it good? Then it’s easy to thank God for, isn’t it? Is it bad? If you can remember that this day, like every other day, His ordinances stand fast. Those eternal realities are unshakable. His Word is infrangible. The world and all its passionate desires will one day disappear. The man who is following the will of God is part of the permanent and cannot die. I encourage you to make an offering of your sufferings.

Transfiguration. These are the words from Isaiah 58:10–11, “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (rsv).

If we receive the things that God wants to give us, if we thank Him for them and if we make those things an offering back to God, then this is what’s going to happen—transfiguration, the great principle of exchange that is the central principle of the Christian faith—the cross. We know that the cross does not exempt us from suffering. In fact, the cross is a symbol of suffering. In fact, Jesus said you must take up your cross.

The first principle is that of the cross: Life comes out of death. I bring God my sorrows and He gives me His joy. I bring Him my losses and He gives me His gains. I bring Him my sins, He gives me His righteousness. I bring Him my deaths and He gives me His life. But the only reason God can give me His life is because He gave me His death.

give Him my deaths and He gives me His life. My sorrows, He gives me joy. My losses, He gives me His gains. This is the great principle of the cross.

Our perspectives need to be transfigured, changed into something that has glory in it. And that wonderful chapter of Hebrews 11 tells me many things about perspective.

Paul was able to sing in prison. And he wrote those prison epistles which are filled with joy. The book of Philippians is called the epistle of joy. And he wrote these stunning words in the first chapter of Philippians, verse 29, words which to me are loaded. He said, “For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well” (nrsv).

You have been given a gift of suffering.

when I suffer, He suffers. Christ suffered on the cross. He bore all my sins, all my griefs and all my sorrows. And yet there is a full tale yet to be fulfilled. I don’t understand it. I simply affirm it. I accept it.

transfigured view of these paradoxes. Scriptural metaphors for suffering speak of pruning. The best fruit comes out of the most drastic pruning. The purest gold comes out of the hottest fires. I have certainly learned the deepest lessons of my life through going through the deepest waters. And the greatest joys come out of the greatest sorrows. Life comes out of death.

These are some of the things that the Scripture tells me God transforms. The wilderness into pasture. Deserts into springs. Perishable into imperishable. Weakness into power. Humiliation into glory. Poverty into riches. Morality into immortality. This vile body into a resplendent body. My mourning into the oil of joy. My spirit of heaviness, He gives me in exchange a garment of praise. And beauty for ashes. In Revelation 7:16 and 17 we read, “They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (nkjv).