"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." — Hebrews 12:11, ESV
In 2010, doctors informed me that my right leg carried a three-and-a-half-inch length deficit. Without intervention, I would face severe arthritis alongside serious hip and knee pain in early adulthood. I was in high school when this decision fell upon me. After weighing my options, I chose to move forward with a leg-lengthening procedure — a decision I did not fully understand until I was experiencing it.
The surgery required that both my femur and tibia be intentionally broken, leaving a one-inch gap between the fractured ends. Eight pencil-sized rods were then drilled into my leg to anchor external fixators. These were metal devices assembled alongside the rods to serve as a temporary skeleton while my bones were severed.
Each day, I turned two small screws one-quarter turn each, lengthening the rod by approximately one millimeter. My body, interpreting the gap as an injury to be healed, began producing new bone. But the fixators continued to stretch, deceiving my body into generating more. The process was slow, methodical, and relentless.
Several nights, I woke to a sensation identical to my leg breaking. The pain was not metaphorical. It came without warning, sharp and consuming, and created dread prior to turning the screws. On one of those nights, I cried out in my mind,
"God, why did you choose me?”
Beneath that question lived a truth I had not yet found language for: I understood why death could feel like mercy.
When suffering consumes the mind, the capacity to glorify God and enjoy Him becomes obscured — not because God has moved, but because affliction crowds out everything else.
This raises a serious and honest question for the suffering Christian: how does one glorify God during trials, when the trial is all one can perceive?
In Job chapter 6, Job finds himself convinced that God is his enemy. He compares himself to a donkey without fodder and an ox without grass — a man stripped of contentment and searching for what he needs simply to function. He questions whether he retains the strength to continue living in a manner worthy of God, and in his desperation, asks that God’s pleasure in his death be granted as a mercy.
What is striking is not Job's despair, but what he does before bringing that despair to God. In response to Eliphaz's counsel in chapter 5, that Job should examine himself, Job does exactly that. He searches his own conduct. He asks whether injustice lives on his tongue, whether his own palate can discern the cause of his calamity.
"Is there any injustice on my tongue? Cannot my palate discern the cause of calamity?" (Job 6:30, ESV)
Job already considers himself to be blameless, yet he examines himself anyway. That is wisdom. The suffering Christian cannot glorify God in a storm while blinded by unaddressed sin. Irritation, self-pity, bitterness, and unchecked anger toward God are not neutral; they are incompatible with praise and must be brought before Him honestly.
The author of Hebrews frames suffering itself as a form of this examination: "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children." (Hebrews 12:7). Not every trial is punishment, but every trial carries the possibility of formation. The right posture in suffering is to bring the question to God:
Is there something here you are correcting in me? Something you are growing?
and to wait honestly for the answer. To be honest, there isn’t always one given. Yet, this is the first step toward glorifying God in trials: to look inward.
One of the fruits of the Spirit is thankfulness which is, in scripture, often paired with rejoicing. Paul binds them together across multiple letters. Where one is commanded, the other follows closely. And where rejoicing is present, praise is possible.
To understand thankfulness in the face of suffering, consider something ordinary. When a wrist is broken, a task as simple as pouring a glass of water becomes a laborious task. The limitation is constant and frustrating, because the body is accustomed to two functioning hands. What once required no thought now demands effort and attention (unless you’re ambidextrous).
The response Scripture calls for is not the denial of that frustration. It is the deliberate acknowledgment of what remains. Some examples include: a working arm, the ability to stand, the reality that bones, by God's design, tend to heal. Thankfulness does not require the pretense that nothing is broken. It requires the honest recognition that something is not.
Paul commands this orientation repeatedly. In Ephesians 5:20, he writes while in prison to give thanks "always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." That instruction does not exclude the difficult seasons.
"giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 5:20, ESV)
Thankfulness functions as a discipline constructed through pain. And for the suffering Christian, it is the entry point into something larger. If one can be thankful, one can rejoice. If one can rejoice, one can offer praise. The progression is not automatic, and it does not erase grief, but it moves in the right direction.
In psychology, chunking refers to the practice of breaking an overwhelming task into smaller, manageable units. Applied to suffering, or prolonged hardships, it means releasing the crushing weight of an indefinite future and accepting the more manageable responsibility of the next twenty-four hours.
This is also a biblical principle. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus instructs his followers not to be anxious about tomorrow, for each day carries enough concern of its own. The emphasis is clear: Solve today’s problems without fixating on the future.
"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
(Matthew 6:34, ESV)
James describes human life as a mist, appearing briefly and then dissolving. This is not meant to produce despair. It is meant to produce humility and presence. No one is promised long stretches of time. Each day is a gift, even while experiencing suffering.
There is a strange clarity that hardship can bring. When quality of life is diminished, the temporary nature of earthly experience becomes more apparent. The suffering Christian is not easily distracted by the comfort and accumulation of earthly expectations that often draw the attention of those who are well.
Because their encouragement is the shortness of life, illustrated by James, affliction can produce a deeper orientation toward eternity — a hope for Christ that is not crowded out by lesser pleasures.
Lasting joy on earth is produced by Christ. Therefore the sufferer can have genuine joy in any circumstance, not because the circumstance is good, but because the source of joy is not the circumstance.
Paul writes in Philippians 1:21, "to live is Christ, to die is gain." It is a remarkable declaration. But he follows it immediately by affirming that he is still needed on earth. His life still carries purpose, even within suffering, perhaps especially within it.
"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Phillipians 1:21, ESV)
God removed his hedge of protection from Job not as an abandonment, but because Job was "blameless and upright" (Job 1:8). Job's suffering was purposeful, even when it was invisible to Job himself. That pattern recurs throughout Scripture: purpose does not always look the way we expect, and it is rarely legible in the middle of the trial.
When King Asa faced an Ethiopian army that vastly outnumbered his own forces, he did not perform confidence he did not have. He prayed: "LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty." (2 Chronicles 14:11). He acknowledged the gap between what he faced and what he could do — and he brought that gap directly to God.
That is the posture the suffering Christian is called to. Not the performance of strength, but the honest presentation of weakness before a God who is neither surprised nor indifferent.
"He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names."
(Psalm 147:4, ESV)
Christians worship a God who "determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name." (Psalm 147:4). He is not distant from the details of suffering. He answers prayer, though not always in ways that align easily with what we ask. Jesus himself, in the garden of Gethsemane, asked for the cup to be removed, sweating blood under the weight of what lay ahead, and then yielded: not my will, but yours.
That is what glorifying God during trials finally looks like. Not the absence of anguish. Not the performance of peace. It is the continued turning toward God in the middle of the storm, being honest about the weight of it, and trusting that He is present in it.
The ability to glorify God during trials is not a feeling that arrives naturally. It is cultivated through self-examination, through practiced thankfulness, through the discipline of living one day at a time, and through practice to remember that God is VERY present.
Job wrestled and was heard. Paul suffered and wrote from prison about joy. Jesus sweat blood in a garden, but conquered death, and rose three days later.
Suffering is not the end of the story. Glorifying God during trials is not despite the difficulty; it is through it.
If this reflection has been helpful, consider sharing it with someone walking through a difficult season.
