Romans 5:3-4 “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Many things about the Christian life and experience are an acquired taste. Getting up and going to church may not have the same appeal as sleeping in or playing golf at first. Singing in heaven’s choir someday, and seeing God face to face, may not sound like a great way to spend all eternity.

Enjoying pain is not a Christian virtue, and it is not an acquired taste of Christian faith and life. But notice that Paul does not say, “we enjoy our sufferings.” He says, “We rejoice in our sufferings.” There is a difference.

Whether it’s physical pain, agonizing failures, dashed dreams, broken relationships, or heartbreaking losses, we Christians feel the same trauma unbelievers do. Faith doesn’t take that part of it away. It does promise us a good outcome in the end.

When I was in high school I ran the mile and the two mile in track. Training consisted either in running much further than my races, say five or even ten miles, to build endurance; or in running much shorter “sprints,” a series of six or eight quarter mile races against other team members, to build speed. Neither one was pleasant. My lungs burned. My joints and muscles ached. My stomach turned. Sometimes I wanted to puke. Even after I got into shape, and the work was easier, I cannot say that I ever enjoyed either approach to training.

But when the day of a track meet rolled around, and I shaved ten seconds off my previous best time, or I even managed to place or win a race, I rejoiced in the results of my suffering. I earned points for my team. I came closer to qualifying for a school letter. I could impress my girlfriend who competed on the girls’ team.

Even non-Christians can see that sometimes their pain ends in good things. Faith in Jesus simply promises that the good things coming from suffering are certain, whether we can see them or not. Paul walks us quickly through this journey of personal growth. A lot like my track experience, suffering produces perseverance, endurance. Each painful episode of life makes us spiritually stronger, and able to hold out longer.

Perseverance, in turn, produces character. Maybe while I am in the middle of suffering and enduring, I am scared out of my wits. Maybe I cry like a baby. Maybe I am anything but a model of manliness and maturity. But when it is all over, I have passed the test. My faith in God has survived, and its value has been made clear. He stuck with me all the way. The next time I will be a little less whiney, a little less scared. Perseverance has built character.

And character teaches me hope. I may not be at the end of my life story yet. There are hard things up ahead, painful stops along the way. But they will not cut my journey short of its goal. I know how this story ends. It doesn’t end in darkness and nothingness. It doesn’t end in fire and torments. It ends in my Father’s house. It ends at a great homecoming feast attended by some of my dearest friends and family, and by countless others who traveled this same road of faith. It ends in the arms of my Savior, whose hands perhaps still show the scars that prove his love.

We aren’t making the journey alone. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” All along the way, Faith lives with God’s love for us filling our hearts. He doesn’t give us a little sip here or there. He doesn’t tease us with a little drip on our tongue. He pours our hearts full of his love in making us, redeeming us, winning us, keeping us safe and getting us home. He doesn’t dump this love on us and then leave us to navigate the long, difficult journey home. Through the Holy Spirit, God himself lives in us all the time. And if God is living in us by his Spirit, how can we possibly fail to reach the end?

So we don’t enjoy our sufferings, but we do rejoice in them, because we know how God is using them, and where they are taking us. Only good things are waiting for us in the end.