Suffering in the Christian life is like a microwave. Like it or not, we’re fast tracked on the road of sanctification. As the Lord meets us in our sorrow, He often reveals the beauty of the gospel and the depth of our sin in ways that change us. The Lord uses the furnace of trials to refine His children.
If suffering is a microwave, inconvenience and discomfort are slow cookers. They take longer, but sanctification still happens beneath the surface.
James 1:2–4 tells us, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”
Sometimes the trials we face will be big—terminal illnesses, house fires, car accidents, war. Sometimes they will be small—traffic, long lines, toddler tantrums, difficult coworkers. Yet, big or small, all these afflictions are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17).
As Christians, we talk about the “big” suffering we experience in this life a lot. We often fail to consider the little discomforts we face daily, though. These are not the microwave, but the slow cooker. The Lord still has plans for our good in these moments; we just need eyes to see them.
Everyday Affliction
Most of our lives play out in the mundane moments between indescribable joy and intense sorrow when everything feels ordinary, and our minor inconveniences feel like a big deal. These discomforts matter because the Lord is too good to waste even one moment.
Inconveniences come for everyone every day. Seasons of intense suffering still include stubbed toes. Seasons of joyful success are still punctuated by changing deadlines at work. We can try to prevent these things—we can offload tasks and adopt the way of the “essentialist”—but we will never eliminate all the minor pain points that plague our days. They’re part of life in a fallen world and they’re part of God’s plan for our sanctification.
God’s Plan for Us
If you’re rolling your eyes right now, thinking this is an attempt to “bludgeon you with providence,”[1] just know, it’s not. We don’t know what God intends to do through every inconvenience we face, but we do know that 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” No matter what else He may be doing, we know that God is working to make us more like Jesus, and He uses everything we face for that purpose. The slow cooker is on, and the heat is working.
A few years ago, while in Dallas for a Christian conference, I got to see this in action. My boss realized her credit card was missing after we returned to our hotel from a restaurant. We had to go back. We struck up a conversation with our Uber driver, and he mentioned that he hadn’t been to church in years. After hearing about his life and his ideas about God, a coworker explained the true gospel to him. She prayed with and for him and concluded just as we got to our hotel. Without that forgotten card, we would have missed this opportunity entirely.
That said, I forgot my wallet the very next day, and it didn’t lead to any clear gospel opportunities. But in that moment, in an Uber on a crowded highway, God desired for a man named Sam to hear the good news about His Son. I can also trust He had good purposes the next day when it was my wallet that went missing. Glory be to God, He uses everything.
One Day We Will Be Truly Comforted
When the paperwork piles up and we wait on hold for hours, we can be assured that this is not wasted time. In God’s economy, there is no such thing. The Lord is always sanctifying us, and if we see no other good from our circumstances, we can meditate on this: One day, these things will be over. We’ll work without the frustration of weeds. We’ll no longer tediously try to force back the effects of the fall because they will all be gone. There will be no more forgotten passwords, hidden costs, or grocery bags that tear when you pick them up.
God uses the temporal things of this world to increase our longing for the eternal. Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God has put eternity in our hearts. By God’s design, we long for a better day. Our momentary afflictions are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. They are lifting our eyes from the things we can see, which are transient, to the things we cannot see, which are eternal (2 Cor. 4:17–18).
There is purpose in our inconvenience. Perhaps the traffic jam, delayed flight, and toddler tantrum are working together to lift our eyes from the world and force them heavenward. Perhaps they are kindnesses from God to remind us that we’re not yet home. This world is not where we belong.
So, what can we do today when inconvenience comes—when thorns poke through our garden gloves and thistles attach themselves to our pantlegs?
1. Pray
We can pray that God would open our eyes to see what He is doing in this world—through this inconvenient circumstance. As John Piper famously said, “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”[2]
We can ask God to show us what He’s doing and help us delight in it. We can ask Him for faith to believe He is at work, even when we can’t see it.
2. Look
When inconvenience arises, we can look for doors the Lord may be opening. We can look for good works He is revealing. We can look at what rises in our hearts as a response to the inconvenience. Is it the peaceful fruit of the Spirit or is it the ugly fruit of discontentment and frustration?
3. Rejoice
We can rejoice that God breaks into our ordinary days with beauty and purpose. We can rejoice that He is too good to waste anything. We can rejoice when we see His Spirit at work in us and in the world around us.
4. Trust God and Do Good
We don’t have to despise the slow cooker. We can rejoice because God can be trusted with everything—big, small, happy, sad, or mildly frustrating. We can walk toward Him and do the good works He’s prepared for us, even when they show up in unexpected and undesired places.
We’re Almost Home
This world is not our home. It will be full of thorns and thistles, but take heart. Our Lord bore the cursed thorns we deserve on His own brow. He reversed the curse, overcame the world, and He’s loosening our grip on it. As we sit in the slow cooker or bake in the microwave, we can know that none of this is wasted; the Lord is completing the good work He began in us. We’re almost home.
[1] Tim Challies, “Bludgeoning with Providence,” Challies, September 7, 2007, https://www.challies.com/articles/bludgeoning-with-providence/.
[2] John Piper, “God Is Always Doing 10,000 Things in Your Life,” Desiring God, January 1, 2013, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-is-always-doing-10000-things-in-your-life.
