Friends, have you ever felt like you’re in a pressure cooker? Like life is just too much? The kind of pressure where you feel like you might crack under the weight of it all? The Thessalonians knew a thing or two about that. They were facing some serious heat, real challenges, and Paul, in his second letter to them, doesn’t shy away from it. But he doesn’t just offer a pat on the back and a “hang in there” either. He dives deep, offering a perspective shift that’s as relevant today as it was back then.
He starts, as he often does, with gratitude. “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters,” he says, “and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.” (2 Thess 1:3, NIV). Think about that for a second. Even in the midst of their struggles, something was growing. Their faith. Their love for each other. It’s easy to focus on what’s wrong, what’s broken, what’s not working. But Paul, he flips the script. He highlights the good, the beautiful, the growing.
It’s a reminder for us too.
What’s growing in your life, even now? Even in the midst of the mess?
Maybe it’s a tiny seed of hope. Maybe it’s a flicker of compassion.
Nurture it.
Pay attention to it.
Because growth, even the smallest bit, is a sign of life.
Then he says something really interesting. He talks about their “persecutions and trials.”
He doesn’t sugarcoat it. Life was hard.
But he connects those very trials to something bigger. He says these trials are “evidence of God’s righteous judgment, so that you may be considered worthy of his kingdom, for which you are suffering.” (2 Thess 1:5, NIV).
Now, this isn’t some cosmic math equation where suffering equals worthiness. That’s not how grace works. Instead, it’s about character. It’s about how we respond to the pressure.
Do we become bitter and resentful? Or do we, somehow, through the struggle, become more like the person Jesus was?
The pressure, the trials, they can actually refine us, shape us, mold us into people of greater resilience, greater compassion, greater love. It’s not that God causes the suffering, but God uses it.
He redeems it. He transforms it.
Like a potter working with clay, the challenges we face can become the very things that make us stronger, more beautiful, more…us.
This idea of “God’s righteous judgment” isn’t about some distant, angry judge waiting to whack us with a gavel. It’s about the universe having a certain order to it. A rightness. A justice. And in this upside-down kingdom, it’s often through suffering that we learn what that justice truly looks like.
It’s through the cracks that the light gets in, as Leonard Cohen so beautifully put it.
So, where does that leave us? It leaves us with hope. It leaves us with a God who sees us, who knows our struggles, and who is working even in the messiest parts of our lives. It leaves us with the understanding that even the hard things, the painful things, can be a part of our journey towards becoming the people we were created to be. It leaves us with the courage to keep going, to keep loving, to keep believing, even when it feels like the world is falling apart. Because in this upside-down kingdom, the last shall be first, the weak shall be strong, and even suffering can be a pathway to glory.
And that, my friends, is good news.
Grace and Peace,
-Pastor Scott.
Pastor's Ponderings 