Yesterday we talked about trials and the fact that, as Christians, we can expect to have to endure them as David did. All the time. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Check out the first few verses in today’s reading in Romans:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access, by faith into this grace in which we stand , and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5:1-5 (ESV)

Suffering produces hope. Sounds counter intuitive if you ask me. But that’s skipping out the middle part. Suffering to endurance to character to hope. It makes sense. Look at David. His trials caused him to lean more heavily on God. Each time he came against a wall, he laid his worries, his complaints, his pain at God’s feet. Each time he made it through, it became easier to make it through the next storm. He endured. And, because he weathered the storms upright, he became a man of greater faith and greater character. When he came out the other side, he had more hope in the One who brought him through.

It becomes easy to see how people can become discouraged and downhearted. If you have no faith how can you ever have any hope that things can be different? How can you ever grow in endurance and character if you’re always parked in the middle of a storm without anyone near who can stand and command the wind to cease?

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Daily Bible reading: Psalm 73-74; Romans 5