“Jesus learned obedience by the things which He suffered, not by the things which He enjoyed. In order to fit you for His purposes both here and in eternity, He has lent you this sorrow. But He bears the heavier end of the Cross laid upon you! [See Hebrews 5:8]” (Elisabeth Elliott).

I find something about older books that I don’t find in the newer ones. It seems to me that there was much more of a prophetic bold voice in the writers of faith from back in the day that’s not nearly as present in this age. Maybe it’s because talk about suffering doesn’t sell books or build brands anymore.

I personally would much rather learn obedience by doing what I enjoy. If there was a way to godliness through napping, I’d take it. But unfortunately, that’s not the way of Jesus.

Throughout the prophecies and gospels, we find a Man of Suffering acquainted with grief. We see that His whole life was leading to death on a cross at Golgotha. We learn about a ministry where people by and large rejected this Messiah because He talked about things like eating His flesh and drinking His blood and taking up your cross to be His disciple.

I don’t think Jesus would ever want us to deliberately seek out way to suffer and be unhappy. But I do think that more and more as we seek to follow Jesus, we will have trouble. We will suffer. We will be ridiculed and misunderstood and rejected and hated. Some of us will suffer physically. Some of us may well lose our lives.

But we will not undergo anything that Jesus hasn’t already endured first. We will never be asked to carry any cross that Jesus hasn’t carried first, to walk any road He hasn’t already gone before and made a way. We have the promise that He will be with us to the end of this age where everything’s upside down and people celebrate evil and condemn good.

May we endure to the end not because we are perfectly faithful to Jesus but because He is perfectly faithful to us. Amen.