🔥 FUEL FOR A HOLY FIRE

There Is Purpose in the Pain

“God has used pain and suffering in my life more than anything else to mold me more into His image.”

I wish I could say the seasons that changed me most were the easy ones.

The prayers answered exactly how I wanted.

The doors that opened.

The mountaintops.

The seasons when everything made sense.

But when I look back over my life, some of the deepest work God has done in me happened in places I never would have chosen.

Pain has been a chisel in the hands of God.

That doesn’t mean everything that caused the pain was good. It doesn’t mean God delights in suffering. And it certainly doesn’t mean we have to pretend something doesn’t hurt in order to have faith.

It means that when suffering enters the hands of a sovereign and loving God, pain does not get the final word.

God can take what hurts and use it to make us look more like Jesus.

Romans 5:3–5 gives us this incredible progression:

Suffering → Endurance → Character → Hope

“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…”
— Romans 5:3–4

Notice Paul doesn’t say suffering is hope.

He says suffering produces something.

There is movement happening beneath the surface.

There is purpose being worked out even when all we can feel is the pain.

And maybe that’s where some of us are right now.

We want God to get us out, while God is also concerned with what He is building within us.

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🔥 F — FOCUS YOUR EYES ON JESUS

Pain has a way of shrinking our field of vision.

We see the diagnosis.

The loss.

The unanswered prayer.

The broken relationship.

The uncertainty.

The thing we desperately want God to change.

And those things are real. Faith doesn’t require pretending otherwise.

But Romans 8:18 lifts our eyes:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Your suffering is present, but it is not permanent.

Your pain is part of your story, but it is not the conclusion.

So when you cannot understand what God is doing, focus on who God is.

The question slowly changes from:

“God, how quickly can You get me out of this?”

to:

“Jesus, what are You doing in me while I am here?”

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🔥 U — UNLOAD YOUR BURDENS TO HIM

Surrender doesn’t mean you stop asking God for deliverance.

Jesus Himself prayed in Gethsemane:

“If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
— Matthew 26:39

There is nothing faithless about saying:

Father, I don’t want this.

I don’t want the pain.

I don’t want the uncertainty.

I don’t want this road.

But surrender adds:

“Still, I trust You with me in it.”

First Peter 4:19 says:

“Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”

Entrust.

There is the heart posture.

I don’t have to understand the road to trust the One walking it with me.

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🔥 E — ENCOUNTER JESUS IN THE SUFFERING

Sometimes we spend so much time looking for the exit that we miss the presence of Jesus in the room.

Paul described us as:

“Jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:7

Clay jars crack.

They aren’t impressive.

They aren’t indestructible.

But they carry treasure.

And sometimes the cracks become the very places through which people see that the strength holding us together could never have come from us.

Paul continues:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair…”
— 2 Corinthians 4:8

That doesn’t sound like a life untouched by suffering.

It sounds like a life sustained by Jesus in the middle of it.

Sometimes the miracle isn’t that the fire disappears.

Sometimes the miracle is discovering Who is standing with you in it.

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🔥 L — LIVE SURRENDERED AND ON FIRE

This may be the hardest part.

Can I still live surrendered to Jesus inside the thing I would most like to escape?

Can I worship before the answer comes?

Can I serve while I’m hurting?

Can I trust when I don’t understand?

Can I say:

“Jesus, if You don’t remove this today, then use it today.”

James tells us that trials produce steadfastness, and steadfastness matures us (James 1:2–4).

Peter compares tested faith to gold refined by fire (1 Peter 1:6–7).

And Romans 8:28–29 reminds us of something we sometimes miss when quoting verse 28:

God isn’t merely working things together so our circumstances eventually become comfortable.

His purpose is deeper.

He is conforming us to the image of His Son.

Maybe that’s part of the purpose in the pain.

I have prayed many times for God to change my circumstances.

But looking backward, I can see seasons where God was answering an even deeper prayer:

He was changing me.

The suffering taught me endurance.

Endurance began forming character.

Character taught me that my hope couldn’t rest in circumstances.

And when everything else became shaky, Jesus became increasingly precious.

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🔥 THE FIRE ISN’T ALWAYS THE ENEMY

We usually pray:

“Lord, get me out of the fire.”

And sometimes He does.

We should absolutely pray for healing, restoration, deliverance and breakthrough.

But sometimes God does something else.

He meets us in the fire.

He burns away things we didn’t realize we were carrying.

Self-reliance.

Control.

Pride.

False security.

The illusion that we can hold our own lives together.

And what remains is something more precious:

faith that has discovered Jesus is enough.

Paul writes:

“Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:16

Something can hurt on the outside while God is doing something holy on the inside.

That’s the mystery.

That’s the hope.

And that is why I can say:

God has used pain and suffering in my life more than anything else to mold me more into His image.

I wouldn’t have chosen every chapter.

I wouldn’t ask for some of them again.

But I can look back and see fingerprints of God in places where, at the time, I could only see darkness.

The pain wasn’t pointless.

God was forming something.

And He still is.

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🔥 FUEL CHECK

Maybe instead of only asking:

“God, when will this end?”

today we also ask:

“Jesus, what are You forming in me here?”

What is this teaching me about You?

What needs to be surrendered?

What are You stripping away?

Where are You building endurance?

How can my weakness display Your strength?

And how can I live on fire for You even here?

Because the goal of Christianity isn’t simply getting through life with as little pain as possible.

The goal is Jesus.

To know Him.

To trust Him.

To become more like Him.

And if God can take even the places that hurt and somehow use them to accomplish that purpose, then suffering may wound us—

but in the hands of our faithful Creator, it will never be wasted.

🔥 F — Focus your eyes on Jesus.
🔥 U — Unload your burdens to Him.
🔥 E — Encounter Jesus daily—even here.
🔥 L — Live surrendered and on fire for the Lord.

The fire may be hot. The refining may hurt. But God is still working. There is purpose in the pain.

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace… will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
— 1 Peter 5:10