Coming up next on renewing your mind.

I haven't seen any vocational schools that give a diploma in suffering,

or if place where you can go and study how to die.

And yet, if I understand what Scripture is teaching about the nature of suffering

and about the nature of death,

there are times where the call of God upon that person's life is to suffer.

Have you ever thought about suffering in that way as a calling of vocation?

Hello, welcome to renewing your mind on this Wednesday. I'm Lee Webb.

There were people in Scripture who were called to suffer at various points in their lives.

We can draw comfort and encouragement from their stories.

But they all point to the one person whose entire life was devoted to suffering.

Here's our C-Sprull.

There's a somewhat lesser-known work of Herman Melville, the author of Moebe Dick and Billy Bodden,

host of South Sea Adventure Stories.

One of his lesser-known works, Melville, makes this statement.

He says, until we learn that one grief outweighs a thousand joys,

we will never understand what Christianity is trying to make us.

Now, when Melville makes that statement, I don't think that he's simply being morbid

or pessimistic.

But he is echoing a sentiment that we find in Scripture itself,

for example, the wisdom literature of the Old Testament declares

that it is better to go to the house of mourning

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