Look at the tear-stained face of four-year-old whose Happy Birthday helium balloon floats to the clouds, or feel for a heartbroken teen whose sits home during the prom and you know life hurts sometimes. Cynics say, “This is just the beginning, kid.” They are right. As years roll by, we all experience hardships, hard knocks and hurts.
Yet Paul says that in our hardships there is hope. This hope enables us to be exposed to hardship in order to proclaim the good news of God’s redemption. In other words, all the hard makes us not just seek but celebrate the bigger, broader hallelujah moments that will come one day.
APPLICATION: Expose yourself to a hardship. Sit with (and care for) someone who is hurting. The hardships you have had (and may currently have) equip and enable you to do a ministry of care and compassion. Love someone who hurts today not from misunderstanding, but from the experiences that make your heart far bigger—and far stronger—than you may realize.