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Suffering is one of the basic prerequisite of success. Though suffering is relative, it is an indispensable experience for a durable breakthrough.
Proverb 13:11 says
“Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished”
Another  translation says  “a sudden fortune will dwindle away”
I’m sure many of you are quick to cite examples of people who are succeeding without suffering.    Look! If you are succeeding without suffering it means somebody has suffered for you. May be your father, brother, husband or wife.
  2Corinthians4:17
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
For every suffering, there is an accompanying glory. Jesus we all know went down before he was raised up.
He was beaten and humiliated, eating nothing, drinking rubbish, reviled and punished. But today, he has name – respected in heaven, obeyed on earth. That at the mention of that name every knee must bow.
Friends, there is suffering before the smiling you are waiting for.

• David suffered in the bush, in the caves when Saul was busy pursuing him around, before smiling in the palace.
• Jacob didn’t find it easy in the house of Laban, he suffered before God gave him his inheritance.
• Joseph was a spoiled child of an aged father. close it the father and pampered in all areas.

But the law of suffering had its way. He passed through the servitude in Potiphar’s estate before tasting what it is to go the prison. But when God turned back his captivity, it was like a dream! I’m sure you know that David, Jacob and Joseph  later forgot their suffering – in the name of Jesus you will forget your suffering.

• In recent history also, we have records of men and women who passed through the land of suffering, and gloriously moved to the land of Canaan.
• During the 10 years in which Isaac Newton made his greatest discoveries, he found  it very hard to pay 2 shillings a week to the Royal Society of England to keep his membership.
• Chief Obafemi Awolowo of blessed memory though he died as an infidel is an example of how men can rise through the rubbish heaps of life to sit among men that matters. I’m sure you know he was once an houseboy, a sterographer, a poor man by all standards.
• Late Arch Bishop Idahosa, the man who put the name of Nigeria in the world map of Christianity once pushed truck in Benin, while the wife sells plantain. According to him, he was so poor that the poor called him poor!
• Look,  that you are suffering today does not mean you should lose hope. Don’t ! Don’t !!
• I know of a man who once hawk bread on the streets of Ibadan, who today is having a growing Pentecostal fellowship in U.K.
• Thomas Edison, that great thinker and inventor who helped us with the light bulb and many other inventions was once a newsboy on the train.

II Cor 5:21
Our light afflictions of today worketh…
Friends, receive hope! Your suffering today will work out your long awaited success. You are paying the price today, don’t worry you will get the prize. Please take note that by suffering, I’m not referring to punishments received for your disobedience or crime.
The Almighty God will not allow you to suffer in vain!

What should be your attitude during suffering?

1. Don’t lose hope: if you don’t lose hope, you will receive help. Things may not be working as you want today, but you just keep on. Keep on, you help is coming.

The word of God says “for thou shalt not be ashamed neither be thou confounded; for thou shall not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood anymore”.
How do you generate hope:
a.Get closer to God-the hope of all creatures. There is nothing too hard for Him to do. “For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope”. Be saved, forsake sin and begin to follow God, He is able to change your story, He is able to put laughter into your mouth.
Oh thank God for the life of Job throughout his days in the school of suffering, he was hopeful. He said I know my redeemer liveth!
b.Hope in His words
Ps 119:114 Thou art my hiding place and my shield. I hope in thy word.
c.Begin to imagine a great tomorrow. Gen 11:6
“As a man thinketh in his heart so is he”   Imagine yourself getting out of that suffering, imagine a better tomorrow. See yourself succeed .Visualize it in your mind: what you see is what you get.

2. Never lose your joy. Suffering is not forever. Don’t lose your joy, laugh often. Laughter has a great medicinal value. “Whether the fig tree blossom or not” the writer of Habakkuk says I will rejoice in the Lord my God, I will joy in the Lord of my salvation. Joseph was a good example of a person who suffered ‘joyfully’. He accused his prison mates of losing their joy, because he was never sorrowful.

Beloved you will succeed. But remember, it is a matter of choice. There will be two teams in heaven. – Abraham’s team and Lazarus the beggar’s team.
To which team would you like to belong? The same scriptures which says
the poor shall not cease in the land also declares thou shall lend into nations and thou shall not borrow