The Uses of Suffering. Not all suffering can be explained as useful, but some can, as Paul does in Romans 5:3-5: (Click here to read more.)

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

The sermon at St. Ebbe's today was on that passage, and I tried applying it to my own sleepiness at the time. Hardly suffering, but one of those little annoyances that we ought to try to turn to our advantage. Maybe I'll get a little endurance out of it.

The progression is interesting in the passage. Really, I'd have to learn about the Greek to understand it. The King James Version uses quite different words in the middle-- Patience and Experience.

And not only [so], but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

At any rate, the point is that tribulation is, for the faithful, a cause of hope, not of despair, but not directly. God wants us to develop character through our life on earth, and that seems to require suffering. Why, we must leave as a mystery perhaps, but it does not seem unreasonable that God's aim is to create a certain sort of being that requires memories of mild suffering. This is not as hard as the Problem of Evil; this passage does not seem directed towards that.