Job suffered terribly. We know the story of how he was on the top of the world—wealthy, healthy, a wonderful family, obedient, with a reverence for God, and serving him faithfully. But for reasons Job didn’t know, he suffered the loss of everything. Everything. In the end after his three friends tried to explain all the reasons why he suffered, God challenged Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2).

Suffering and struggles send us to prayer. Even though we desire to be a “prayer warrior,” the distractions of everyday life tend to put prayer too low on our list of priorities. Then comes suffering.

All Christians will suffer, just as our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus suffered:

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake. (Phil. 1:29)

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he [Jesus] said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

 

Prayer is an act of steadfast faith.

Besides suffering as followers of Christ Jesus, who suffered on our behalf so that we, by faith in him, may be saved from our sins to a glorious and everlasting life, suffering in this life strengthens our faith and drives us to prayer. When James instructs us to be joyful in suffering (James 1:2), he explains that suffering tests our faith and produces steadfastness so that we lack nothing (James 1:3-4).

In other words, suffering often turns our faith away from ourselves, away from our own self-sufficiency and pride, to cry out to the Lord for help. This is an act of faith, a confidence of believing that God can help us in our suffering and that he is the one who loves us, who sustains us, who heals us, and who hears us. Prayer is an act of steadfast faith.

For example, when Christ Jesus was nearing his time to suffer on the cross, he turned to God the Father in prayer. The writer of Hebrews records,

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. (Heb. 5:7)

The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus in John 17 is another example of Christ praying to the Father just before he would be betrayed and go to the cross to die. In Matthew 26 Jesus goes alone on the Mount of Olives to pray before he would be betrayed, and with “sweat dropping like blood to the ground” he prayed earnestly with agony to the Father to let the cup of his suffering pass, then saying, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:39-44).

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