How to Deal With Pain and Suffering--My Favorite Bible Verse
It’s the last few minutes Jesus will have with his disciples before his death, and so he teaches them about how to deal with fear and suffering:
“Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” [John 16:20-22]
Suffering and fear are only temporary. God is at work, using pain for a purpose. I think Jesus’s metaphor of a woman in labor is a powerful one; when the future comes, we’ll look back on past pain and find it all was worth it: what God is going to do will be that good.
This is a great passage overall, but what Jesus has to say at the end has become my favorite Bible verse:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Jesus is telling us two things about life:
Trouble in life is inevitable, so don’t be surprised when it comes: just accept it;
Trouble in life is temporary, so don’t lose heart!
Today’s Scripture