 Hey guys, what's up? It's Isaac and today I'm going to be talking about three ways that God is using suffering in your life. But first, I just want to give a huge shout out to all of my patrons on Patreon. Patreon is the way that people are able to support this ministry and help me do what I do in creating content, to encourage, challenge, and inspire people to follow Christ passionately. I just want to give a huge shout out to you guys that are supporting me on there. And if you want to help support me and this ministry, head on over to patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple and you can sign up to give monthly and that would be a huge blessing to me. It's my goal to be able to do this full time and to be able to create more and more content and different kinds of content in order to encourage, challenge, and inspire you to follow Christ. So please help me do that. Head on over to patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple. Thanks guys. So like I said in the intro, we're going to be talking about three ways that God is using suffering in your life and sometimes suffering can seem meaningless. I mean, we all go through things, whether it's sickness or losing somebody or just a difficult time in our life and those things hurt and that suffering is real. And as Christians, we should be ready to not push that to the side or hide it or push in the closet but really bring it out in the open and really see how God is able to use it in our lives. So let's talk about the three things and three ways that God is using our suffering in our lives. Now, the first thing is suffering can draw us to become more like Christ. In Philippians 3 10, it says, I want to know Christ. Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings becoming like him in his death. You know, as Christians, we can let suffering draw us away from God, being angry and frustrated and just bitter at God for the suffering and the challenges that we're going through. Or we can see it as an opportunity to become more like Christ. Suffering challenges us and it changes us and it can either change us to move away less like Christ or we can use it and we can kind of reorient it to draw us closer to God and our relationship with him. Let it mature us. You know, I once heard it said that you really find out who you are or what you are when you're put under pressure. That's when your real character comes out. And I think it is a real opportunity when we do go through times of suffering and trials in our life to really find out who we are and change into more like Christ to let our sufferings and our challenges draw us toward him and see that as a process of sanctification, not to become angry and frustrated at God. But to see this as an opportunity to cling on to our only hope and that is Christ. So the first way that God is using our sufferings is to draw us to be more like him. The second way God is using our suffering is through suffering, we learn perseverance and in Romans 5 3 it says not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. And we see this in when somebody has gone through suffering in order to make it on make it to the other end of that. They're going to need to scrape. They're going to need to persevere. They're going to need to endure. That's going to be a very difficult and trying process. And if you've ever been in that situation where you've experienced something hard, you know that it took endurance and perseverance to get through it. And on the other end of that, God uses that to really grow that character trait in you. So when you go through that again, you are able to persevere and you're just becoming stronger and moving towards like the first point moving towards more like Christ. I can remember when my mom was going through cancer treatments and just being able to help out the family was a real blessing. But it was also very difficult. It was a difficult time for my family and for me and I know for sure for my mom. But just seeing her perseverance, even in the midst of trial, I understand that look, this is not purposeless. This is not hopeless. This is not an empty, meaningless trial by a random universe. No, God uses this to develop perseverance within us to build our character, all of our character to grow us more like him. The third thing is when we handle trials and hardships and struggles in our lives in a Christ like in a godly way. We're showing the world what it looks like to have God's strength and grace and hope within our lives. In 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 8 to 10, it says, We're showing the world the gospel through our suffering. We're showing the world what it looks like to have hope in something that is outside ourselves. We're showing the world what it looks like to persevere in a godly way. Understanding that this is not a meaningless life. This is not a meaningless trial. God uses everything for our good and his glory. He's working all things out for our good and his glory. And when we understand that and when we can display that to the world, when we can go through trials, when we can go through struggles, when we can go through hardships in our lives and be a witness, we can use that as a springboard to the gospel and even showing that through our lives without saying a word. But we can also say, hey, look, yes, I'm able to do this because I have hope in Jesus. I want to kind of go back to that example of my mom going through cancer because it was something significant, a significant trial in the life of my family and just being able to see her be able to use this trial as a springboard to really show what it looks like to handle trials in a hopeful and godly way. Understanding that God is using this and being able to point other people to God through it. Because when other people, when you're going through struggles, when you're going through trials, you're going to have people coming up to you. Literally, this happens where they're like, how are you able to go through this and still have hope? How are you making it through this? What is sustaining you through this? And you can say, it's God. It's God through our trials. God is using our trials and struggles and sufferings to give us a springboard to point to him, to say, hey, look, I'm able to do this. I'm able to sustain. I'm able to persevere because God, because Jesus, because of his strength that he gives me because of the Holy Spirit that lives within me. That is a powerful testimony. Your sufferings are not meaningless. God is using them in your life. And I pray this video encouraged you. If you like this video and got something from it, I encourage you to give this video a like and subscribe to the channel because we're putting out new videos Mondays and Thursdays. I really appreciate your comment down below. Let me know what you think. And once again, if you'd like to support this ministry and what I'm doing, help me create videos and other resources online to continue to do this. Please support me on patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple. It would be huge blessing to me. Thanks very much, guys, and I'll see you next time.