suffering

I have been learning a lot from God's Word recently about suffering and enduring through it. I wanted to share some verses that have been encouraging to me that I have come across or others have pointed out. I hope they encourage you in the same way.

1Peter 1:6-7 "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Acts 16:25 "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them." (this is after they are arrested, stripped and flogged, then thrown in prison, feet put in stocks so that the only position they could put their bodies was to lay flat on their backs that were just ripped open)

Psalm 40:17 "Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay."

Psalm 43:2-4 "You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holdy mountain, to place where you dwell. Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God."

Ecclesiastes 1:18 "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief." (you may wonder why I find this one encouraging; in a weird way, it's nice to know that as I grow in knowledge I will experience more sorrow as I realize more and more that this earth is not my home)

My prayer is that when I do go through times of suffering that I remember and cling to God's truth and rely completely on Him.