A Martin Handcart company survivor once testified that his suffering, the price that he paid to become acquainted with God, was a privilege to pay. 

 

When he was so weak from illness and starvation that he could barely walk, he would tell himself, I can pull my handcart to the next patch of sand or next incline, and then I have to stop. But he found when he reached that sand or that incline, the cart started pushing him. He looked behind him many times but never saw anyone helping to push his cart and he knew that he was receiving help from the angels. He knew that his Heavenly Father was helping him after all that he could do.

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The author of Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor, said if there is meaning in life, there is meaning in suffering. The meaning I’ve found in suffering, the reason I’m grateful for suffering, is that suffering can bring us closer to our Father in Heaven. Suffering can make us more like his son, Jesus Christ. The price we pay to become acquainted with God is a privilege to pay.

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 Jordan Peterson once said that people doubt everything except their pain. No one ever doubts their pain.  If pain is the one thing we do not doubt, then suffering is the most genuine experience any of us will ever have. If you’re willing to turn to God when you are suffering and in pain, the testimony you will build will be powerful. Because if suffering is the only thing that we truly believe is real, how much more real must be our God who gets down into our pain with us and comforts us, having suffered exactly the pains we suffer, and even greater, having conquered them all? How much deeper is our conversion to a God who knows what our pain feels like, because he has carried the burden of it, who has compassion for us because he understands how we feel, and will help ease our pain? 

 

Suffering is the price we pay to become acquainted with God.

And the price we pay to become acquainted with God as a privilege to pay. That’s today’s reason to smile!