God does not operate according to human convention.  In the world our prayer is always focused on what is easy and satisfying.  We pray for sunshine not the storm.  The sunshine has its benefits but we only grow through the trials and storms of life and sometimes God chooses to take one of his own as an example of how to suffer.  For most trial and affliction brings about murmuring and a ready plea for deliverance.  Yet for some the suffering is a testimony for one's love for God and someone God can take pleasure in watching the suffering of patience.  We know how Job was a witness to God and how God finally exonerates him.  We also know from first Corinthians ten how God punished the murmuring of the Jew in the desert and how that punishment was to be an example for us.  Yet for most trials produce murmuring.  So it pleased the Father to bruise his Son and it pleases God when suffering is handled as a means of redemption and grace.  St. Paul would not glory save in his infirmities and trials.  I imagine it pleased God to bruise Paul as well and when God finds the person who has the spirit of Christ, who is loving and kind in spite of their personal trials and affliction, God takes pleasure in them as well. 

            God strikes a balance between healing and deliverance and trials and suffering.  Abraham's trial of faith lasted twenty five years but when God was finished with him he became “the friend of God” and the “father of many nations”.  God may choose for you the Isaac life reaping the benefits of his father or God may chose you to be a father like Abraham to bring the blessing to those who are your spiritual children.  When you find a person who knows how to suffer, that person is pleasing to God, and God expects you to be a blessing to that person.  Recognize that it pleased the Father to bruise Jesus so Jesus could be the first fruits of the kingdom and that the elect could receive the blessing of God.  But also know that sometimes God chooses special people to suffer as Christ suffered.  Both give testimony to the love of God.