Pastor Kent Christmas | Understanding the Ways of God | November 12, 2025
The ways of God often remain “past finding out”. Even after years of dedicated service, God’s methods can seem complex. However, the sources reveal a consistent pattern: greatness for believers often emerges from suffering. This suffering is not punishment but a process that God uses to develop and prepare individuals to fulfill His will.
The Privilege of Suffering and Divine Trust
For God, suffering is a privilege. The disciples reportedly rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name’s sake.
Suffering signifies two key things:
- Divine Attention: It means God’s attention is focused on the individual.
- Divine Trust: It means God trusts you.
It is often those who love God the most and are the most dedicated who appear to go through the most. God seems to release His most valuable “gems”—things very important to Him—to people who are currently in a difficult place.
Redefining Success
Sometimes, God allows individuals to go through difficult circumstances because He trusts them. For example, God might place successful ministers in “hardest ground” because He needs His word released and knows they “won’t bail him” or quit. Conversely, men who “can’t handle the fire” might be placed in an easier location, appearing more successful outwardly.
However, the success defined by God is different from the success defined by man.
Patterns of Suffering and Revelation: Three Biblical Examples
The sources highlight a pattern where God isolates and allows His chosen servants to suffer in order to release great revelation and develop greatness.
1. Moses: Choosing Affliction for Greatness
Moses was presented with a choice: he could have stayed in Pharaoh’s house and enjoyed a luxurious life, but he chose to suffer the afflictions of the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Moses’s mother likely instilled in him the awareness of his divine call. When he reached a crossroads at age 40, God essentially said, “If you’ll choose to suffer with the people, I’m going to make you great”. It was through this choice of affliction that God revealed Himself to Moses.
2. Daniel: Isolation in Captivity
Daniel was an extraordinary man whom God called “greatly beloved”. Despite God’s love, Daniel was allowed to go into captivity and become a slave in Babylon as a young man.
- Isolation as Preparation: God never allowed Daniel to go home; he died in captivity. The sources suggest God intentionally put him in this foreign land and isolated him.
- Focusing the Spirit: Isolation often separates individuals from voices or influences, allowing God to reveal things. It was in this state of suffering, captivity, and isolation that God began to reveal the future to Daniel.
- Revelation and Prophecy: Much of modern eschatology is derived from the revelations God gave Daniel, including the ability to interpret dreams and visions for Nebuchadnezzar and his son Belshazzar.
- Faithfulness in Difficulty: Even as a slave in a foreign land, Daniel chose not to defile himself with the king’s provisions. He remained faithful, giving thanks to God three times a day.
3. Paul: Suffering for the Kingdom’s Advance
The Apostle Paul, a rising star with great intellect and knowledge, had his life change dramatically upon his conversion. God immediately revealed that He would use Paul greatly, but Paul would have to “suffer great things” for His name.
- Isolation and Revelation: Just like Daniel, God isolated Paul, leading him to spend three years in Arabia. During this isolation, God revealed things to Paul that no other man had been given revelation of.
- Kingdom Advancement: The Kingdom of God often advances the most in the greatest difficulties of our lives. Out of Paul’s suffering came the revelation.
- End-Time Knowledge: Paul received revelation of the future, including the catching away of the church, the rapture, and details about the tenure of the end times.
- Light Affliction: Paul later wrote that “Our light affliction is but for a moment”. He emphasized that affliction is light and that God provides a way of escape. God puts believers through things not to make them miserable, but because it advances the Kingdom of God.
Joseph and John: Interpretive Gifts and Ultimate Revelation
The sources highlight Joseph and the Apostle John as further examples of this pattern:
- Joseph’s Purposeful Suffering: Joseph received dreams about the future as a teenager. God then isolated him, allowing him to suffer for 13 years as a slave, wrongly accused of rape and disloyalty. Out of this isolation and suffering, God gave Joseph the ability to interpret dreams and visions. Joseph recognized that what the devil intended for evil, God meant for good. This suffering ultimately brought God’s people into their inheritance.
- John’s Final Vision: John, who had a profound love for Jesus, was isolated by God at age 90, despite his faithfulness. God allowed him to be taken prisoner and put on the harsh, rocky island of Patmos, a penal colony. In this isolation and suffering, God revealed the last pages of humanity—the secrets of how everything is going to end—in the Book of Revelation.