“Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” Luke 9:23-26 (NIV)
We all too often either despise the cross - the discipline of the Lord - or we faint under it and cry out how intolerable it is. Sufferings have a bad name in our era yet God’s love and rod stand together. There is always purpose for every pain allowed in the life of the child of the King. He teaches us in our afflictions and hardships much that we cannot learn in our ease – when things are going swimmingly well. Often in our prosperity we tend to counsel God as if we could tell Him how things might be better. We lean on our own small understanding rather than His omniscience. We kick against our crosses in lieu of taking them up. Shunning them rather than embracing them. He has much to teach us through each affliction and we learn by degrees. His desire is for us to embrace what He wills, when He wills and how He wills.
Pride runs through our veins naturally and it is nourished by our ease and prosperity. God desires to develop meekness and willingness in His children and He accomplishes this through our hardships and then He either saves us out of them or gives us supernatural grace to withstand them as He did Jesus on His cross. All that is allowed in the lives of His heirs of mercy is for their ultimate good and His glory never one surpassing the other. The “thing” itself may not be good but it will most assuredly be used for our good. That is the promise of Scripture.
Interestingly, our flesh often recoils over self-denial yet it is in doing this that we are able to take hold of the life that is truly life. The thief comes only to steal and kill and ravage but Jesus comes to give life and give it to the full. And His way to victory is through the cross.
“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV)