mgpcpastor's blog

As we’ve prayed for God to be glorified, for people to come to know and trust Jesus, and for His purpose to unfold as we pass through a season of our friend’s (and his family’s) suffering there’s been an important distinction of which we’ve been conscious.
We’ve wanted God to work through this suffering, but that’s different from saying that this suffering happened in order for these works to occur.

This post (a book excerpt) from R.C. Sproul makes the point that it is ultimately the suffering of Christ through which our sufferings take meaning.
Here’s the conclusion:

Because of Christ, our suffering is not useless
What does this mean in practical terms? My father suffered a series of cerebral hemorrhages that caused him great suffering and eventually ended his life. I’m sure that while he was suffering he must have asked God, “Why?” On the surface, his suffering seemed useless. It seemed as though his pain was for no good reason.
I must be very careful. I do not think that my father’s suffering was in any way an atonement for my sins. Neither do I think I can read God’s mind with respect to the ultimate reason for my father’s suffering. But I know this: my father’s suffering made a profound impact on my life. It was through my father’s death that I was brought to Christ. I am not saying that the ultimate reason my father was called to suffer and die was so that I could become a Christian. I don’t know the sovereign purpose of God in it. But I do know that God used that suffering in a redemptive way for me. My dad’s suffering drove me into the arms of the Suffering Savior.
We are followers of Christ. We follow Him to the Garden of Gethsemane. We follow Him into the hall of judgment. We follow Him along the Via Dolorosa. We follow Him unto death. But the gospel declares that we also follow Him through the gates of heaven. Because we suffer with Him, we also shall be raised with Him. If we are humiliated with Him, we also shall be exalted with Him.
Because of Christ, our suffering is not useless. It is part of the total plan of God, who has chosen to redeem the world through the pathway of suffering.

Read the whole post at Ligonier.