For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey…
It was the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.
(Deuteronomy 8:7-8, 14-16)Though our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed every day.
For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…
(2 Corinthians 4:16-17)We cannot sufficiently conceive either the joys of heaven or the pains of hell.
But if we could, we would be much more moved to suffer for Christ to win heaven’s joys than to avoid hellish pains.
Let us try to cultivate through prayer such a fervent longing for heaven’s joys in our hearts that in order to attain them we will count as nothing all fleshly delights, all worldly pleasures, all earthly losses, and all bodily torments and pains. [8]
(St. Thomas More, Dialogue, 223)
We’ve looked closely at suffering, but for a Christian, suffering is only a sidelight.
The point is not suffering; it is abundant life.
Suffering is the road to all good things.
The intelligent traveler wants to know what his journey will require, but he is on the road only so that he can get home.
Christianity is not stoicism.
There is a reason that Lent lasts for 40 days and the Easter season lasts for 50.
Joy swallows up suffering.
We suffer because we are working our way out of our rebellion and Fall.
But our hearts are filled with the hope and joy of what God has promised us
Like the Israelites in the desert, the Lord is leading us through the wilderness, one that is sometimes terrible and that has its share of “fiery serpents and scorpions.”
But that is so that he can bring us to the good land of brooks, fountains, vines, and fig trees.
Our gracious Master is willing to walk us through any amount of suffering if it lets him “do us good in the end.”
It can help us to consider where this road through the desert leads.
We aren’t given many specific details about our real life beyond the grave, but we know some things about it.
Ultimately, the reign of Satan will be utterly defeated, and death will be overcome.
Man’s interior battle will end. We will experience within ourselves the harmony and peace meant for us from the beginning.
We will know what it means to be home.
We will be inundated by perfect goodness, true justice, and unmixed joy.
Our relationships will be filled with love, freed from the darkness that now plagues even the best of them.
Our senses will come fully alive, and all that is most beautiful on earth will find its fulfillment.
We will delight in finding all we have ever longed for: the fountain of life, God himself.
All this and much more awaits those who follow Christ on his low road to that high place.
Brothers, let us be present to today.
Let us be ready to endure whatever suffering may come on this day.
Let us be so present to what the Lord wills for us today, that on the day that really matters, when shadowy existence of this world is swallowed up by the brightness of eternal life, we will hear our Lord and Master say to us: “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!” (Matthew 25:34).
