Enduring tribulation is inevitable. That's a promise repeated ad naseum from Scripture; However, what is not inevitable is long enduring personal sin and joylessness. We sometimes treat these as if they were the same thing and God had promised them both.
NO!
We may not yet be perfected, but never has God promised that we would nor should gravel in the filth of sinful living, destitute from the hope of joy. Quite the contrary actually, as Paul and Silas demonstrate when singing amid the injustice of a prison sentence.
Yet if we believe that those 2 things are the same, our efforts to persevere in godliness will soon seem futile. Our discouragement will fulfill our errant expectations.
