“Oh, remember that my life is a breath! My eye will never again see good.” (Job 7:7)

These are words spoken by Job in the valley of misery. He has lost everything and now he cries out hopeless to the Lord to make a swift end to his life. We have to keep in mind that not all of what Job says is the Christian message, and much of what he heralds in these chapters are birthed out of immense suffering.

Nonetheless, Job’s words ring true about the swiftness of human life. Suffering is a strict tutor to unfasten us from the cares of this world and set our eyes on the world that is to come. Perhaps this is why Paul, the apostle of suffering, had his sights relentlessly set on the heavens. The more he suffered, the more his focus was sharpened on eternal life.

“Yet indeed I count all things loss… that I may know [Christ] and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10–11)

Perhaps this is why we even see Paul encouraging young Timothy to:

“…share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God…” (2 Timothy 1:8)

Let’s be clear — the Scriptures do not condone an ascetic lifestyle as a means for spirituality, but they do promise that our sufferings have a way of loosening our grip from this life and opening our eyes to the eternal glory that is to come.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)

If you are in the ocean of suffering today, let the Lord Jesus Christ commandeer your ship and adjust your sails toward eternal shores. Don’t be as Job who thought his eyes would never see good again. Your suffering is never without purpose, as Job supposed, for the Master is perfecting you into a vessel fit for His use that bears a more eternal weight of glory.

Don’t become embittered, but soften your heart to the wise Potter’s hands and let Him use the fires of suffering to strengthen and fortify you. And never forget that He knows what it means to suffer; and He bears your personal sufferings even now (see Isaiah 53:4).

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

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