Yes God seeks to bless us and yes we will suffer. Here are Dallas Willard's words from his book Hearing God:
Any voice that promises total exemption from suffering and failure is most certainly not God's voice. In recent years, innumerable spokspeople for God have offered ways we can use God and his Bible as guarantees of health, success and wealth. The Bible is treated as a how-to book, a manual for the successful life in the way of the Western world, which if followed will ensure that you will prosper financially, that you will not get cancer or even a cold and that your church will never split or lack a successful minister and program. To the question from the old hymn
Shall I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through the bloody seas?
these people shout, "Yes, most certainly!"
But if we consider those who stand throughout history as the best practitioners of the Way, we will find that they went through great difficulties, often living their entire lives and dying amidst these great trials. The word of God does not just come to lead us out of trouble--though it sometimes does this--or to make sure that we have it easy and that everything goes our way.
Dallas Willard p. 180 in Hearing God.
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