Suffering as a Spiritual Priviledge

Suffering, considered as a nurse of holiness, may justly be regarded as a spiritual privilege. Certain it is, that the only true pleasure, the only true privilege, which heaven or earth affords, is that of doing and suffering the will of God. All pleasure which is separate from God, is only evil and wretchedness in disguise.

It is well for us to suffer, among other things, that we may have a better understanding of the situation of others who suffer, and may have more sympathy with them.  A fallen world, where evil is continually striving with good, is not the garden where true and unalloyed happiness may be expected to grow. Suffering, whatever distinctions grace may make among men, places us on a level with the common lot of humanity, and leads us continually to think of the situation of sinners, and to feel for them.

Another of the benefits connected with the endurance of suffering, is, that, when endured in the fulness of Christ's dispositions, it imparts true liberty of spirit. It Is hardly necessary to say, that there can be no bondage to the mind that cheerfully lays all the world's gifts upon God's altar. It finds its riches in having nothing, and realizes the feeling of its freedom in the fact that it has no choice separate from God's choice.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 7.