It's Just Too Hard

First Draft: November, 2024

Final: 10/18/25

I marvel how it is that in looking back on this article, which I had not published in the first writing, it so profoundly echoed my current sentiments from a year before when I first drafted it!  And yet, I found that I needed to modify its language into a more hopeful outlook because of the light the gospel has re-shone in my heart.

In the last couple chapters, I’ve talked about personal intimacy with God through the Holy Spirit.  This is the key catalyst for bearing fruit and evidencing the new birth through Jesus Christ.  But let’s get raw.  This often feels like a marriage gone really bad that I want a divorce from, particularly in my place of private suffering where I see so much setback in this life (let’s face it–not many of us get an Erika Kirk platform to display the glory of Christ’s spirit of forgiveness in the gospel).  Humanly speaking, productivity seems so minimal, and all the suffering for it seems to cry, “Not worth it!”  (Oh, by the way, Jesus’ life was really the same MO, for even most of His followers by the end had either left him or utterly turned on Him and killed Him!)  Christians sing hymns like, “Oh victory in Jesus!”  And “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling” and “Arise my soul arise!” and “Onward Christian soldiers!”  But I often feel more beaten down than victorious, more confused than strong; I sense the kindness and tenderness of His call, but only in the midst of painful scourging; I don’t feel the grandeur of power rising in my soul that would make me a hero, but the lifting up I obtain from the Spirit through the Scriptures and the saints often feels just enough to keep me from utter despair; I often feel that my forward march is as good as a hike up a sand dune (one step forward, three-quarters step back) as I’m routed by suffering.  I have chronic physical illness, pain, and exhaustion.  Those hidden enemies within seem to scoff and mock the claims of the gospel, like the people standing at the cross mocking Jesus.  They seem to strip me of a sense of hope and dignity, like Jesus was stripped naked at the cross.  They scream at me so strongly through pain, that all my mental, emotional, and spiritual nervous system seems utterly wrapped up in the reality of somehow enduring agony, and wishing more than anything that it were over.  Jesus' feet and hands were nailed to the cross and His body flayed open by whips.  He couldn’t humanly get out of His suffering either.  Maybe the way I feel about the helpless suffering I’m in is God’s way of giving me a taste of His sufferings.  Jesus had us figuratively eat His flesh and drink His blood (the bread and wine) in the Communion supper for more than just a visual and sensory experience of remembrance.  It symbolized the way we eat His flesh now in suffering as we are given a portion of weakness, helplessness, and scorn.  It showed us how, as we drink His blood, we enter into the pouring out of His life.  Jesus told Peter that he would indeed drink Jesus’ cup.  The Apostle Paul wrote, “[I want to] know Christ…and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil 3:10).*

However, Paul wrote in the ellipses, “I want to know the power of His resurrection.”  Wait, where is that manifested?  And why did Paul start with that and not end with that?  First suffering, then resurrection, right?  Maybe the question needs to be, what is resurrection?  The resurrection of what?  Paul wrote, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16).  And Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).  This body of corruption is that seed that must fall down and die.  What is left is what will prove fruitful or not.  If my soul is not transformed by the Holy Spirit living in me, and my body wastes away, then there is no life left.  I am eternally dead.  However, if what is within me by the new birth through the Holy Spirit by faith, is that spark of truth and hope that shouts of the resurrection, then the slow death of my body will fertilize that life within and strengthen and prove its value and existence.  Peter said, “[These trials have come] so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Therefore, the power of the resurrection is the Holy Spirit in me, who is continually at work!  This is not just a future expectation; it is an ongoing reality for the born-again disciple of Jesus.

I read in a book a sister in the Lord lent me called, Grace Grows Best in Winter that it is by acceptance that we find peace: acceptance of our lot of suffering.  But how does one accept agony?  It’s like telling a prisoner to accept the torturer, to not try to escape but to accept it cheerfully.  That’s insanity!  Or is it?  Did Peter accept his fate when he was chained to the guards awaiting an execution?  Clearly he did, or he wouldn’t have been sleeping.  But God didn’t accept it, so He miraculously released Peter, no fretting, plotting or worrying on Peter’s part needed.

What gave Peter or anyone else in Christ, who has suffered immensely, the spirit of acceptance?  Is suffering itself tolerable?  I would argue no!  Is it good as an end in itself?  I would argue no!  Otherwise, why would Jesus not have stayed on that cross forever, or why would the author of Hebrews say that Jesus “endured” the cross? (Heb 12:2)  Is suffering something that in and of itself we value as worth keeping?  Again no, or why would Scripture direct our gaze and hope toward the “glory that will be revealed”?  Then why should it be accepted at all?  For its purpose–the bridge that it is to knowing God, strengthening faith, and dying to self-reliance.  “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1b-2).  The point is that Jesus Himself went through unspeakable suffering, not because it was something to be desired in itself, but because it led to joy!  Acceptance, therefore, must be our spirit in the midst of deep trial, for the joy that is set before us through it!  This requires faith!  While we pray for deliverance–because the good news of the gospel is the package of blessing that comes from reconciliation with God, resulting ultimately in deliverance from the curse–we have peace in our hearts until that prayer is answered because we have faith that our Shepherd will do the right thing at the right time for our sanctification and His glory!  He has already bound the “strong man” of evil, death and sin; these only remain as tools to complete an inner work.

In my life, the joy of rediscovering these truths has broken through the storm clouds over and over and over.  It’s not that we are forced to wait with no recompense or consolation at all in this life, though while the birth pains grow stronger and closer together, it can feel like that.  God is faithful to keep before us what we hope for, even if our calling isn’t that of a powerful evangelist who gets to see the fruit and reward outwardly and visibly in the midst of suffering and persecutions.  God has proven to me the merits of the trial over and over in this life, before I have laid hold of the full reward.  What is it that finally gives my heart joy and makes me smile, even though my body may still be wracked with pain and exhaustion?  It’s the glimpse of God’s power that overcomes all evil: the fountain of Jesus’ love that makes me hate fleshly responses and sometimes gives me power to step up nobly in the midst of great pain.  As all manner of circumstances threaten to overcome the power of the Holy Spirit and gospel faith in the members of Jesus’ body whom He has chosen on the earth, and yet, grace upon grace is given to overcome, I see His joy at work that was set before Him.  When I glimpse His joy, I glimpse my own joy, and there is no flame that ignites my heart like that.  I glimpse His joy in the overcoming power of His love in only the way He can enable me to experience it: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7).  Nothing can substitute it.  However, I would not so relish and embrace that flame of joy if I had not moments before been in a place of despairing darkness.  The suffering enables me to even now experience the joy to new depths.

*All quoted Scripture passages are in the Legacy Standard Bible version unless otherwise noted.