Brother Yun is one of China’s House Church leaders and the Chinese authorities relentlessly pursued him across several provinces, viewing him as a rebel for not joining the official government controlled Christian Church. For this he was imprisoned, suffered prolonged torture, mal-nutrition, and miraculously escaped a maximum security prison, despite two broken legs which were miraculously healed. This amazing man asks for people who pray for persecuted believers around the world not to pray for freedom from persecution but for courage and strength to stand strong in their faith. I have heard Brother Yun speak at a Christian conference and his extreme love for Jesus is still apparent and what I heard and read certainly challenged my faith. I asked myself in those circumstances how would I have reacted!

In today’s epistle reading from chapter five of the letter to the Romans, St Paul says,

“.. but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character and hope”.

In a way, I can see what he means. It certainly seems to be true that we can grow as human beings through the suffering we personally encounter throughout life. When looking back, times of suffering also seem to be times which initiate spurts of inner growth. But the way St Paul puts it makes it seem rather pompously pious and can it possibly be true?

Is it really possible to rejoice in our sufferings? That makes it sound as though we should be grateful for pain, but personally, I don’t particularly like pain and would much rather do without it. Pain may be necessary in order to strengthen my character, and I suppose that could be construed as a good thing, but does it also imply that pain is sent by God so that we humans can grow good? That doesn’t sound right at all. I have never believed that a God of love could actually send us pain, although I do believe he can use our pain to our advantage. But how would rejoicing in that pain help?

According to a book called “Conversations with God”, God says, “I am not pleased by suffering, and whoever says I am does not know me.” Suffering is an unnecessary aspect of the human experience. It is not only unnecessary; it is unwise, uncomfortable and hazardous to your health. God goes on to say that those who are growing in spirituality recognise that suffering is not the way of God, but also understand that suffering is a sign that there is still something to learn about the way of God. So perhaps those who are truly spiritual are able to rejoice that they’re learning more of God’s way, and thus able to rejoice in their sufferings.

But there are difficulties in placing too much emphasis on rejoicing in suffering. One problem is that if people actually learn to enjoy suffering they can become sadists, enjoying inflicting pain on others, or masochists, enjoying inflicting increasing pain on themselves.

Perhaps in these words about suffering, St Paul is reassuring his readers that suffering is not a punishment from God, as had so often been thought in the old Jewish religion. Through Christ, says St Paul, things have changed. God’s action through Jesus has brought us all into the right relationship with God, so that action - the resurrection of Christ after his sufferings - was a declaration of peace with human beings. Through Jesus, we’re O.K. with God. That’s the basis of our Christian hope.

But “hope” is another of those words which has subtly changed its meaning since the days of the New Testament. When St Paul writes of hope, he doesn’t mean that there can be any uncertainty. So it’s not a case of “I really hope it happens like that” but more the complete joy and delight and power of life which can be experienced right now but which will totally and utterly be realised in the future. So this is the hope - eternal life - but it’s not just a vague hope as we understand the word today, but our inheritance. We will be fully in God’s kingdom, living and loving with God, after death, but we can experience a huge amount of that kingdom right now. We can live and love and talk with and listen to God in our life now. And we can do all this because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

God doesn’t just drip a vague goodwill in our direction, but pours out his love into us. All we have to do is to receive that love, but we’ll get more out of it if we learn to spot it, that is, if we learn how to hear God’s responses to our prayers and communications with him. God responds in any number of ways. Through coincidence, through the Bible, through other people, through books, newspapers and television, through songs and music, through our thoughts and imagination and feelings. Be confident that what you’re seeing and hearing and feeling and thinking come from God, and you’ll soon learn to hear his voice. And that will quickly lead you into the rich pastures of his kingdom for that is his promise and our hope and he never lets us down. Never.