Privileged to suffer with Christ

In my younger years, walking with the Lord, I would cry out to God with eagerness, "Take my life! It is Yours!" I realised about a year or two ago that I could not pray that prayer with the same whole-hearted enthusiasm. I still said the words with obedience, but they were sober words, not excited ones. I worried that was evidence of my lack of faith or love for God. Then, I realised, that these words had become sober because, in those few years that had passed, I had learned something (a tiny bit) of the price of true obedience.

Why are we (Christians) so often surprised that true discipleship involves suffering? Why are we so uncomfortable with the fact that the Christian experience should involve periods of suffering? After all, the Word tells us explicitly not to be surprised: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you" (1 Peter 4:12). I am convinced that one of the most cunning tricks of the Enemy has been enticing us to sidelines suffering as a non-essential part of the Christian experience. Too often, I have found myself expecting ease in my Christian walk, feeling ashamed or weak or angry when it is a struggle and when it hurts or wounds me. Slowly, I am learning that in so doing, I have denied the gravity of Christ's promise that "In this world [we] will have much tribulation" and have thus weakened the sheer and overwhelming power of Christ's call for us to "take courage, for [He] has overcome the world! (John 16:33). There is a dramatic promise and spiritual truth that I have missed in denying or refusing suffering. Slowly, through my years of various struggles and now, in all the hardness of living and working in this country, I am learning the reason that the Word calls us to rejoice in our suffering - because in this place, we meet God in His true healing and overcoming power and we are granted real peace! It is for this reason that we are privileged to suffer with Christ!

So, the fact that living and working in Afghanistan is beyond hard - that it strips away at me - is something that I cannot and not want to deny because it would be denying the victory and power of God in its midst.