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“The Only Way Out Is Through”: Suffering and Real Hope

“The Only Way Out Is Through”: Suffering and Real Hope

Last updated on: June 14, 2026 at 11:14 pm by Rob Giannamore

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“The Only Way Out Is Through”: Suffering and Real Hope 2026-06-14T23:14:49-04:00 Rob Giannamore

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In Paul’s introduction to Hope, he demonstrates for his readers then and us now that, for Paul, hope isn’t wishful thinking but absolute certainty about the future, grounded in God’s faithfulness to keep his promises. | Image courtesy of the author.

Anchor Verse: Genesis 18:1-15 – Romans 5:1-5

In Romans 5, Paul describes a spiritual chain reaction—suffering → endurance → character → hope. In this passage, we can see Wesley’s notion of sanctifying grace at work – here, God is shaping us into Christlikeness through life’s realities. In Paul’s introduction of Hope, Paul begins to demonstrate for his readers then and us now that for Paul, hope isn’t wishful thinking, but absolute certainty about the future because it is grounded in God’s faithfulness to keep his promises. That is, what God will do for the believer in Christ is grounded on what God has done for the believer in Christ.

Suffering is Not Meaningless

In Buddhism, they have the concept of dukkha, the idea that all of life has suffering. Rather than an obstacle to struggle and fight against, followers of Buddhism learn how to move with, through and around suffering in a way that strengthens one’s sense of self. We can learn a lot from this. God does not intentionally inflict pain and suffering upon us. God helps us move through and around pain and suffering. We can then take this away – because of this, we can have peace with God.

I remember a drill sergeant in the Army telling (screaming and cussing at me really) me, “The only way out is through.” I heard those words while crawling beneath barbed wire, with explosions sounding around me and blank machine gun fire cracking overhead. We had a saying for these kind of moments that is not appropriate for Sunday, but nowadays, our service personnel use the term, “embrace the suck”. At the time, it was a lesson about dealing with fear and stress. But over the years, the Lord has shown me that this is often how God meets us in suffering—not always by removing the trial at once, but by carrying us through it. In seasons of strain, whether in long miles on the trail, in the slow rebuilding of a vocation, or in the hidden burdens of ordinary life, God has demonstrated God’s faithfulness. Through those hard and holy places, God has deepened my love for my wife, humbled my heart, and drawn me into a nearer walk with God.

So I want to gently set aside a few sayings that sound comforting but do not fully bear the weight of Scripture: “God will never give you more than you can handle,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” Beloved, the witness of the Bible is not that suffering is small, simple, or easily explained. The witness of the Bible is that God is present. The Lord does not abandon God’s people in the fire; God walks with us through it. God does not always answer our pain with explanations, but God does answer it with God’s presence, God’s mercy, and God’s sustaining grace. And because Christ has suffered, died, and risen, our suffering is never the final word. God can take what wounds us and, by God’s Spirit, form in us endurance, character, and a hope that will not put us to shame. “Suffering does not automatically sanctify us, but suffering surrendered to God can become holy ground.”

Endurance is Formed, Not Gifted

God’s grace strengthens us through the long haul. Let me tell you a story. It was 2012 and I am not so sure I was thinking about God’s grace or strength when I got to the aid station at mile fifteen to get food and water for the 50k or 31ish mile race I was running. The week before, I broke a couple of toes in a training run, and like a good ultra-marathoner, I tied up my shoes and ran the race anyway. At mile fifteen, though, I was cramping severely because I was compensating so much on my right foot that that leg was taking the brunt of the work. So, I arrived at the aid station looking for something to calm things down. I found a banana and some salt, dipped the banana into the salt, and carried on, eventually finishing the race. It was a cool story then, but now, as I approach fifty, those broken toes are not the happiest parts of my left foot.

I am not a gifted athlete; I have only placed in my age group because I was one of three or four people in my age group. I have come in the top ten many times, but again, the field was small. Endurance in faith is also not a gift. It is something more akin to a callus, taking years to form. Endurance is the grace to keep walking with God when the road is long. It is the kind of faith that gets up one more morning, says one more prayer, sings one more hymn, and trusts that God is still at work even when nothing seems to change.

This type of endurance is developed by daily faithfulness:

praying when you are tired
showing up when your heart is heavy
trusting God when there is no quick fix
loving others while carrying your own pain

Endurance is faith that has learned how to breathe under pressure.

Character Emerges under Pressure

Like gold refined in fire, character is what remains when the props are kicked out from under us. It is who we are when we can no longer pretend, perform, or control. Under pressure, God burns away what is false and begins to reveal something steadier, softer, truer — the likeness of Christ. As an endurance athlete and ultramarathoner, I found that some of the hardest days in training were the most productive while I was in school. Much of my training time these days is spent thinking about the day ahead of me. I am not saying you have to rise to the level of training fifteen to twenty hours a week, but I do challenge you to get uncomfortable. In my office, we often tell our clients that growth begins where comfort ends. Being a Christian means living differently, it means embodying the Christ presence within us and bowing to the Christ presence in all we meet, even when it is hard, or people are different than us. Character is not what we pretend to be on our best days; it is what grace forms in us on our hardest ones.

Hope is the Final Product

Hope is not Pollyannaish optimism, but confidence in God’s faithfulness. We can boast in our hope. We often talk of hope as wishful thinking: “I hope it won’t rain,” “I hope I win the lottery,” “I hope my team wins the Super Bowl.” This is what we call small h hope. Looking at Paul’s concept of hope in Romans, we see something different. Here, Paul is not talking about fragile optimism. He is not telling the church to look on the bright side. He is speaking of a hope anchored in the character of God and in the finished work of Christ. This is big H Hope. This hope does not depend on our circumstances improving by Tuesday. It depends on the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Friends, take away this: Christian hope is not a prediction that things will get easier; it is confidence that God will be faithful.

The Spirit’s Love is the Catalyst

God’s love is the heat that drives the transformation. The Christian life is not powered by grit alone. We do not suffer our way into holiness by clenched fists and sheer willpower. The Spirit meets us in our weakness and pours the love of God into the dry places of the heart. What we cannot manufacture, God supplies. Love for God is unconditional; there are no strings attached, nothing we have to do to earn it. It just exists freely. In this posture of God, we gain the freedom to be ourselves and let God be God. A very harmful doctrine of the church is original sin and it has created all sorts of problems for society ever since it was first pondered. Always reflecting on the second creation story, we never stop to consider the first, where, after God’s creation, God exclaims and pours out blessings and celebrations of goodness. God’s love is unexplainable and it is the Spirit that pours God’s love into our hearts. It is this love pouring out into us that allows new life and new hope to spring up within us. It was the love of God and God’s guidance that led my family through many dark trials of rebuilding. It is this love that sustains my calling as a minister, despite all the trials I have faced, and continues to sustain this journey.

In Closing

I want to close by looking at how Genesis 18 relates to Romans 5. In Genesis 18, Abraham and Sarah were asked to trust a promise that looked unreasonable. Their bodies had aged, their circumstances had narrowed, and their future seemed already decided. Yet God spoke hope into what looked closed and barren. That is often how God works — not by denying reality, but by speaking promise deeper than reality’s limits.

Some of you are in that place right now. You are tired of being strong. You are weary of waiting. You are carrying something no one else can fully see. And the good news of Romans 5 is not that your pain is imaginary. The good news is that your pain is not wasted, your sorrow is not unseen, and your future is not empty in Christ.

So if you are in a season of suffering, do not hear Paul saying, “Try harder.” Hear him saying, “Hold on — God is at work.” Hear the gospel saying that Christ has already gone into suffering before you, and Christ is with you in it now. Hope often begins in impossibility. And hear the Spirit whispering that what feels like an ending may yet become the place where God forms endurance, shapes character, and gives a hope that will not let you go. God’s promise always comes before visible evidence.

For our small church, hospitality must become an embodied act of hope and faith. Amen

Benediction

Go now, in the blessing of God who meets us where we are and surprises us with new life where none seemed possible. May we be a people who embody God’s miracle called laughter as we work for the flourishing of all creation as the family of God. Amen.

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