Suffering is how we are tested and purified, and ultimately strengthened by “what doesn’t kill us”.
Jesus suffered “for our sins” so that we don’t have to. In this world, we must pay for our “crimes” – but if we think we have to pay for our “sins” then we haven’t accepted that Jesus already took care of that. We “repent” from our sins by honest resolve to change ourselves for the better. Jesus “paid” for them so that we can be “forgiven” of them.
It’d be like if a friend in front of you tells the movie ticket attendant, “I’m getting both of ours,” and gets two tickets, and I say, “just to be sure I’d better pay for my own.” So how much does that make the friend’s gift worth?
Suffering is like how we feel when the world runs us through its obstacle course of mainly nonsense, so that we may become anxious, depressed, or whatever. We also know that suffering is not something that God the Father is too picky about. He sends sun and rain on both the righteous and unrighteous, and Job suffered more than anybody else and he was of great faith.
So to me, “suffering” for retribution of sins is what Jesus came to protect us from, because the wages of sin is death. He came so we may be born again.
So what about practical uses of suffering? Just like an army boot camp – get used to dealing with enough **** day after day, and soon the “real world” starts to smell like roses. This comes across to me as similar to the Dark Night, and as others have mentioned that is a way of getting a “head start” on purgatory.
The false self says, “when things are in order, I will find peace.” Our True Selves, speaking in the in spirit, would maybe say, “when I find peace, things will be in order.”
The peace of Christ is not like the world can give; the world can only give comfort, which is conditional and temporary. For “peace” to be of value, it has to stay with us during both times of worldly comfort, and times of being tested by the world.
James 1:2-8
2 Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. 6 But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.
