¹⁵But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; ¹⁶for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

Paul suffered much throughout his ministry. He would later write about this reality as distress:

…in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger… (2 Cor. 6:4–5)

He added, when comparing himself with self-exalting preachers:

Are they servants of Christ?—I speak as if insane—I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Cor. 11:23–29)

Yet, he could say even later in this life that he desired above all else,

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death . . . (Phil. 3:10)

Paul was not motivated by self-preservation. For him, suffering was not to be avoided; rather it was an unremitting attendant to accomplishing the goal for which God had chosen him. Rather than simply endure the sufferings, he embraced them as a means to Christlikeness. Loss of physical comfort gives way to spiritual comfort, which made Paul more effective in comforting others in their struggles: “For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ” (2 Cor. 1:5). He could even write:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. (Col. 1:24)

In the simplest of applications to make but the hardest to live out, we can be encouraged in our suffering because even the apostle Paul suffered for Christ, for His name’s sake.

Lord, help me embrace suffering as a means to fulfill Your purposes in my life.