My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
Week 5: Suffering and Its Purpose
Read selected entries from My Utmost for His Highest on suffering, trials, and God's discipline (e.g., late January–early February entries). Key verses: Romans 5:3–5; 2 Corinthians 4:17; James 1:2–4.
Previewing Week 5 of My Utmost for His Highest
Read 3 of 8 discussion questions below. Unlock the complete 13-week guide when you’re ready.
Chambers refuses to offer easy comfort to those who suffer; instead, he opens up a more demanding and ultimately more hopeful vision — that God uses suffering not to punish but to purify.
Discussion Questions
8 questions1.Chambers writes that God engineers our circumstances to accomplish in us what He could not accomplish any other way. What is your honest gut reaction to that claim? Does it comfort you or trouble you?
2.He distinguishes between suffering that comes from sin and its consequences, and suffering that comes because God is deepening our character. Have you experienced both kinds? How did you discern the difference?
3.Chambers says that the greatest temptation in suffering is not bitterness but *escape* — the desire to get out of the trial before God is finished with us in it. Can you identify a time when you tried to escape a hardship prematurely? What did you miss?
a.Is there a current trial you are tempted to escape rather than endure? What would staying look like?
b.What might God be doing in you through that particular hardship?