- Building Cardinals
- Posts
- 3 Purposes of Suffering
HEY CARDINALS NATION!
Welcome to our Athletics Department Newsletter. By subscribing, you will get any and all information about Concordia Athletics sent straight to your inbox every week. These will be going out every Monday.
I just recently got back from vacation, so expect these newsletters to consistently come out every Monday moving forward!
Here’s what to expect in today’s newsletter:
Blog
Weekly Recap
Quote of the Day
Cardinal Toolbox
Upcoming Events
Read Time: ~ 5 minutes
🔨 BLOG
Our lives are filled with many hardships, trials, and suffering. For many Christians, this picture seems all too familiar. The waves of some challenges can seem relentless. However, adversity goes hand in hand with our journey of faith. Trials serves as the foundation for spiritual growth and resilience. Suffering is not just something we endure, but it is a teacher!
It may seem contradictory to consider suffering as a pathway to growth. Yet, through Scripture we find numerous account of faithful followers who drew nearer to God in the face of trials. It is through their weakened that their character is matured. It is through their trials that they are reminded of the eternal hope that they have in Christ.
Our trials here on earth do 3 things:
Serve as a pathway to reliance on God
Lead us to righteousness
Give us a reminder of our hope and future glory
It’s easy to sail a ship in calm waters. You can rely on your own strength and your own resources. When the storms of life come though, we are driven to acknowledge our limitations. We can’t do it all. And that’s a humbling truth for a lot of us. It’s through our limitations that this truth from 2 Corinthians 12:9 is echoed, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Suffering reminds us of our inability by putting our focus on His ability. It is through weakness that we are driven to depend on God’s strength and mercy. In our adversity, our faith is tested. We are being led to a deeper relationship with God. We discover where our true strength should lie.
It’s easier to sail in calm waters, but we rely on ourselves to steer the ship instead of God. The storms are necessary to put our reliance on Him.
The trials that we encounter also provide us with unique opportunities to display our faith. Through trials, we’re called to be like Christ. We read in James 1:2-4, “Consider it our joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” It is through trials that we are molded to more closely reflect the character of Christ. And it is through reflecting the character of Christ that God’s glory can be shown.
Finally, suffering serves as a reminder of our future hope and glory. The pain we experience in this world is temporary. And in the midst of our circumstances, it can be increasingly difficult to recognize that. We want the pain to go away. We want the anxieties to be quieted. We want our hurt to be healed.
The truth that we are able to cling to, however is eternal. And that is through the peace and joy that is promise by our Father himself. The Apostle Paul knows a great deal about suffering. He writes in Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present suffering are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
In our suffering, we are reminded of the suffering Christ endured on our behalf. We are reminded of the promise of eternal life that He offers. This hope shifts our focus from the temporary trials of this world to the eternal glory that awaits us.
Let us embrace our journey with faith and courage. Trials come in various ways. They lead us to 3 things: reliance, righteousness, and a reminder.
What a beautiful way to reframe our perspective on suffering: our suffering is to be used for His glory.
⏪️ WEEKLY RECAP
During the school year in each newsletter, we will post a weekly recap of what has gone on in Cardinal Athletics! Feel free to send pictures and videos for us to post here to [email protected].
💭 QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Competitive excellence is putting in the work necessary to remove all doubt in your ability to win your individual battle.”
🧰 CARDINAL TOOLBOX
Love these thoughts here from Nick Saban on the importance of setting high standards. Give it a watch.
‼️ UPCOMING EVENTS
SUMMER WORKOUTS
We restarted our workouts this morning at 8am. We had 18 kids show up! If you haven’t come out yet, we’d love to have you come and prepare for the upcoming athletic seasons by getting into the weight room.
These workouts are reserved for CHS students only.
Here is the schedule for them on Mondays-Thursdays.
8am-9am: Weight Room
9am-11am: Open Gym
We’d love to have you come workout!
🏅 LOOKING FOR MORE WAYS TO SUPPORT CARDINAL ATHLETICS?
If you are looking for more ways to follow along and support our athletes, here are a few more things we do:
Interested in Sponsoring an Edition of our Newsletter? Shoot an email to our athletic director [email protected] and he will point you in the right direction!
Follow us on Social Media. Go to the links at the top of the page and follow along for up-to-date news!
We pray that your day is full of reminders of God’s love and faithfulness. May you faithfully build your life on Christ.
“But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in my weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
To God be the glory,
Coach T