Love Poured Out

Romans 5 says,

…but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Isn’t this passage interesting?  Suffering starts this domino effect of good things in us – perseverance, character, and hope.  All qualities in people that we admire.

But we have to experience suffering in order to produce these character qualities in life.

Somehow we see suffering as a part of life to be avoided at all costs.  It’s too hard and too costly, so we’d rather not suffer.

But because these great qualities hang as fruit from the suffering tree, we are supposed to “glory” in our sufferings…because God’s love has been poured out on us.

Food for thought:  The very things we see in our lives as being too hard to tackle, too much to handle, and too heavy to bear just might be God loving all over us, pruning, cutting back, and watering so that the fruit that appears is astounding.

Read the verse again and see what it says to you...