Excerpted from the first day of Pierced by the Word, by John Piper:

“We have absorbed the world’s definition of love.  It says: You are loved when you are made much of.  The main problem with this definition is that when you try to apply it to God’s love for us, it distorts reality.  God’s love for us is not mainly His making much of us, but His giving us the ability to enjoy making much of Him forever.  In other words, God’s love for us keeps God at the center….  If God’s love made us central and focused on our value, it would distract us from what is most precious; namely, Himself.  Love labors and suffers to enthrall us with what is infinitely and eternally satisfying: God.  Therefore, God’s love labors and suffers to break our bondage to the idol of self and focus our affections on the treasure of God….  For most people, love is whatever puts human value [pain-free lives] and human well-being at the center….  But let us not tell Jesus what love is….  Let us learn from Jesus what love is and what our true well-being is.”

Wow.  It is LOVE that brings us suffering when that is what’s necessary to bring glory to God, or to teach us to glorify God.  That truly does contradict our feelings, doesn’t it?  This is one that I will be meditating on for a while.