Christians do not have to pretend that life feels great all the time.

The apostle Paul certainly didn’t mind admitting to hardship. In fact, Paul’s trials led him to say of his troubles in Asia, “We despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.” Trials and troubles will inevitably come—and, like Paul, we don’t have to act as though everything is always fine.

As we are honest with ourselves and others about our trials, we must also remind ourselves that God has a purpose in our pain. Paul says of his burden that “this was to make us rely not on ourselves.” Isn’t it true that when life is going great, when everything seems rosy, we tend to just cruise along? Then trouble hits, and suddenly we’re forced back to reliance on God. He purposes affliction—illness, loss, difficulty in the workplace, a wayward child—that we might not rely on ourselves but on Him alone.

And what kind of God does Paul say we rely on in our trouble? One “who raises the dead.” In every death—both in the deaths of dreams, hopes, and health in life and then in death itself at the end of life—we can cling to the God who has triumphed over death and will lead us to fullness of life in eternity. It is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ that God delivers us from sin now and frees us to hope in a final deliverance from all suffering and death. As we await our full experience of resurrection hope, God uses our trials and weaknesses to keep us close to Him.

In Jesus’ own life, resurrection power came after crucifixion pain. The same pattern holds for us. It is in dying that we live. It is in weakness that we are strong. It is in emptiness that we are full. It is in self-forgetfulness that we find true security and confidence in God.

When God sovereignly allows affliction to shake up your life, remember that He has designed that very trial for you to draw closer to Him and rely more fully on Him. And as you learn to rely on Him more and more, His strength will shine through your weakness, and you will know true spiritual power, even through the pain.