Paul is careful here in a way we usually are not when we quote him. He does not say suffering is good. He says we rejoice in it because of what it produces, which is a different claim entirely.
The chain runs in order: suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope. Each link takes time and none of them can be skipped. You cannot get the character without the stretch that builds it.
This is not a reason to go looking for hardship. It is a reason to stop assuming that hardship means nothing is happening.
Notice where the chain ends. Hope, and specifically a hope that does not put us to shame. That is hope which has been tested rather than hope that has simply never been challenged. The second kind evaporates. The first kind has already survived something.
If you are somewhere in the middle of that sequence, you are not stalled. You are in the part that does not feel like progress while it is happening.
