Daily Worship

God’s love has been poured into our hearts!

Rhona Cathcart March 12, 2026 0 0
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Romans 5: 3-5 (NIV-UK)

3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

I have an, insightful, faithful and very honest friend who once burst out at a Bible study “don’t you just hate the beatitudes!” As we laughed somewhat nervously, she went on to explain wryly, that “all this ‘blessed are the poor, and the meek’ stuff,” was hard to swallow. Being poor wasn’t blessed, it was terrible and unjust. And we shouldn’t be ‘meek’ but actively doing something about injustice and inequality. Of course she knew that there was more to it than that, but her comment certainly shattered our pious bubble of nodding along with Jesus and led to a livelier discussion. 

Paul’s words in Romans 5 make me feel that way sometimes. ‘Boast in our sufferings?’ I mean, what on earth, Paul? 

However, I don’t think Paul is glorifying suffering, or even passively accepting it. What he is doing is acknowledging it. And because he writes from a point of recognition of the deep well of God’s grace, he is able to see how that grace can flow through our suffering. Where others see only the hard, brittle ground, Paul sees the water of life rising. A water that strengthens, that sustains, that tastes like hope. 

 

Prayer:

 

God of life

We know that you do not love our pain

But you love us through our pain 

You do not need us to suffer to fulfil some cosmic plan

But when suffering comes, as it does, as it did for Jesus, 

you give it direction.

Like an underground stream, hope rises

Like a saviour that refuses to stay in the ground, hope rises. 

Amen