His beauty shines most brightly when treasured above health and wealth and life itself. Jesus knew this. He knew that suffering (whether small discomforts or dreadful torture) would be the path in this age for making him most visibly supreme.

The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."2 Fleeing from death is the shortest path to a wasted life.

H]ealing displays the works of God in John 9, and sustaining grace displays the works of God in 2 Corinthians 12. What is common in the two cases is the supreme value of the glory of God. The blindness is for the glory of God. The thorn in the flesh is for the glory of God. The healing is for his glory, and the non-healing is for his glory. Suffering can only have ultimate meaning in relation to God.

For Jesus, the demand for joy is a way to live with suffering and to outlast suffering.

In other words, physical evil is a parable, a drama, a signpost pointing to the moral outrage of rebellion against God.

If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full.

Like a trumpet peal his voice has rung out through all the ages since, nerving with his own courage thousands of witnesses for Christ and wakening in thousands of sorrow-stricken hearts the echo of his own triumphant joy: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

our pain, we are invited to join Jesus so he can share our pain.

Love is something worth suffering for...

He gave our pain and struggles a holy significance, a redemptive power, which makes it a privilege for us to suffer with Christ.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.