God loves us with a powerful love that will not let us down and will not let us go. But His love still lets us suffer, and that’s what the Thessalonian Christians were dealing with. So Paul again wrote a letter, and this time he told the weary believers that he was boasting about them to all the other churches, “about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring” (2 Thessalonians 1:4).

The believers in Thessalonica were suffering persecution but standing in faith. The persecution wasn’t evidence that they weren’t important to God or something was wrong; rather, ^“all this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering” (1:5).

It is a severe kind of love we feel when God allows the sting of sorrow or the pain of persecution to prove that He sees us as worthy. Yet sometimes that is what love does. It allows us to experience the depth of pain to prove the strength of God’s power in us.

But when trials or persecutions break our hearts, God has our backs. He was with the believers in Thessalonica, and He is with us too. Know that “in his justice he will pay back those who persecute you” (1:6 NLT).

God doesn’t operate with an “us versus them” kind of love. But He does watch out for those who love Him, and He cares for them like a perfect Father, who won’t ignore it when His children are mistreated. In “due time” He will make all things right for His children who have been wronged.

Look at the difficulties you face today, and ask God to help you see them through “a full understanding and expression of the love of God” (2 Thessalonians 3:5 NLT), and then give Him your heart because He has your back.