We ought to glory in our troubles, for we know that trouble produces endurance, and endurance, character, and character, hope, and hope will not disappoint us. (Romans. 5:3-5) This word of Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, is one of the amazing affirmations in the New Testament.
I’ve been contemplating Paul’s claim a lot lately. The question of outcome on the world scene with the Afghanistan issue, the raging controversy in our national government, and the continuing local and universal Covid-19 pandemic all bode trouble. Strange as it seems, I wonder if, years ago, black slaves could have responded to this word of Paul by singing, Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, Nobody knows my sorrow; Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, Glory Hallelujah. I continue my reflection.
Trouble produces endurance or fortitude, Paul says. This word “fortitude” means more than endurance as some translators have it. It means the spirit which can overcome the world. It is not a spirit that allows us to passively endure but one that enables us to actively overcome and conquer the trials and tribulations of life.
When Beethoven was threatened with deafness (what could be more terrible for a musician?), he said, “I will take life by the throat!” This is the fortitude Paul is talking about. When Sir Walter Scott was involved in ruin because of the bankruptcy of his publishers he said, “No man will say ‘Poor fellow!’ to me my own right hand will pay the debt.” That is fortitude.
Someone once said to a gallant soul who was undergoing sorrow: “Sorrow fairly colors life, doesn’t it?” Quick came the reply: “Yes, and I intend to choose the color.” That is fortitude AND that is the kind of fortitude troubles produce if we respond in the right way.
There is more. Paul said, endurance produces character. William Barclay, the great Scottish scholar, reminds us that the same word Paul uses for character is the same word that designates that which has passed through the fire so that everything base has been purged out of it. Its usage is coined as we use the word sterling. It describes something out of which every impure material has been eliminated.
This is the reason we talk of people with sterling character. They have been refined in the fires of endurance. Subject to experiences that continually cry out for the best that is within them, they grow strong and their character develops and is purified.
Three lines in Edwin Markham’s poem, “Victory in Defeat,” says it briefly and eloquently.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture
Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.
Trouble produces endurance, and endurance produces character. Trouble does color our lives, but we can choose the color.