BIBLE TEXT: ROMANS 5:1–8 (KJV)
1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
EXHORTATION
KEY VERSE:
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.” — Romans 5:3–4 (KJV)
Welcome to Mercy Speaking Devotional on this blessed Friday, October 9, 2026. Yesterday we considered the daily diligence required to grow stronger in faith. Today we look at what that diligence is actually producing beneath the surface: character, a quality God builds in us through a process we would rarely choose for ourselves, yet one we come to treasure once we understand its purpose.
In the early 1940s, the Dutch watchmaker Corrie ten Boom and her family hid Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution in a secret room behind a false wall in their home in Haarlem, Netherlands. Betrayed in 1944, Corrie was eventually sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she endured starvation, forced labor, and the loss of her beloved sister Betsie, who died there shortly before the camp released Corrie, reportedly due to a clerical error. According to her own memoir and later corroborated by historical research on the Dutch resistance, Corrie did not emerge from that suffering bitter or broken. She spent the following decades traveling the world, teaching forgiveness, and even personally forgiving a former camp guard who approached her after a speaking engagement years later. The tribulation she endured did not destroy her character. It deepened it into something the comfortable years before the war had never fully developed.
Paul describes this very process in Romans 5. He does not simply tell believers to endure tribulation reluctantly. He says, remarkably, “we glory in tribulations also.” This is not a call to enjoy suffering for its own sake, nor to pretend that pain does not hurt. It is a recognition that tribulation, when received rightly, becomes the starting point of a chain reaction that produces something of lasting value.
Paul lays out that chain with precision: tribulation worketh patience, patience worketh experience, and experience worketh hope. Each stage depends on the one before it. There is no shortcut to experience without first walking through patience, and no patience without first facing tribulation honestly rather than avoiding it.
This progression matters because it corrects a common misunderstanding about Christian character. We often assume that mature character is something we simply decide to have, through willpower or determination. But Paul’s sequence reveals that character, what he calls “experience” here, meaning tested, proven character, is produced through a process, not through a decision alone. It is forged, not manufactured.
Think about what each stage actually requires of us.
Tribulation requires honesty, the willingness to admit that something difficult is happening rather than pretending it is not.
Patience requires endurance, the choice to keep trusting God through the tribulation rather than demanding an immediate exit from it.
Experience, or proven character, is what remains after patience has done its complete work, a tested confidence that God is faithful because we have already seen Him be faithful through difficulty.
Hope is the fruit of all three, a confident expectation of God’s goodness that is not naive, because it has already been tested and found reliable.
James 1:2–4 echoes this same truth from a different angle, instructing believers to count it all joy when they fall into various trials, “knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” Notice the phrase “let patience have her perfect work.” This implies that the process can be interrupted. We can resist it, rush it, or try to escape it prematurely, and in doing so, forfeit the very character God intended to produce.
Perhaps today you are in the middle of a tribulation you did not choose and would gladly remove if you could. A difficult diagnosis. A strained marriage. A financial hardship. A season of grief. A disappointment that has not yet resolved. It is tempting, in such moments, to ask only, “When will this end?” Paul’s words in Romans 5 invite a different, harder question: “What is this producing in me while it continues?”
Corrie ten Boom did not choose Ravensbrück. No reasonable person would. But what she carried out of that place, a capacity for forgiveness so deep it became her life’s testimony, was character that could not have been produced any other way. The tribulation did not create her faith, but it proved it, refined it, and gave it a depth that comfort alone could never have developed.
Romans 5:5 adds a crucial promise to this entire process: “hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” You are not walking through this process alone, relying on your own strength to produce character you do not naturally possess. The Holy Spirit is present within every stage, pouring out God’s love even in the middle of tribulation, sustaining patience, validating experience, and securing hope.
Do not despise the tribulation you are facing simply because it is uncomfortable. Ask God to let patience have its perfect work in you. Trust that the character being developed in this season is not wasted, even when the season itself feels unbearably long.
What tribulation cannot destroy in you, it is quietly developing in you.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The character God is developing in you right now may not be visible yet, but it is already being proven true through the very tribulation you wish would end.
PRAYER POINTS
- Father, thank You for the tribulations You have allowed in my life, trusting that You are using them to develop patience, character, and hope in me, in Jesus’ name.
- Lord, forgive me for the times I have resisted the process of character-building through impatience or discouragement, in Jesus’ name.
- Father, help me to let patience have its perfect work in me, without cutting the process short through anxiety or escape, in Jesus’ name.
- Lord, pour out Your love in my heart by the Holy Spirit, sustaining me through every stage of this tribulation, in Jesus’ name.
- Father, give me the grace to see difficulty not as punishment, but as the very process You are using to produce lasting character in me, in Jesus’ name.
- Lord Jesus, let the hope produced through this process never make me ashamed, but settle me more deeply in Your faithfulness, in Jesus’ name.
- Father, I thank You because You are present in every tribulation I face, developing in me what comfort alone could never produce. I trust Your process, and I give You all the glory, in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
