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Nobody likes to suffer, but it’s a reality of the Christian life, promised in every book of the New Testament. While our first-impulse response to suffering is to doubt God, Paul encourages us – though his own response to suffering, persecution, and impending death – to see God’s work in the hardest people and the worst situations. As we trust God’s purposes, processes, and that “what you intended for evil, God intended for good” in all things, we find very real joy, no matter what.