At the Table | Even When It's Harder

18 I believe that the present suffering is nothing compared to the coming glory that is going to be revealed to us.

Romans 8:18 (Common English Bible)

Following Jesus is hard sometimes. There's no getting around that fact. Loving our enemies feels impossible. Forgiving people who have hurt us goes against every natural instinct. Putting others' needs before our own doesn't make sense to a world that teaches us to look out for ourselves first.

But here's what we often miss: the difficulty isn't a design flaw in Christianity. The difficulty is part of the point. God doesn't ask hard things of us to make our lives miserable. God asks hard things of us because easy things don't change us.

If following Jesus never challenged us, never pushed us beyond our comfort zones, never asked us to grow, we'd stay exactly the same. We'd remain selfish, small-hearted people who never experience the joy of sacrificial love or the peace that comes from really trusting God.

Paul understood this. He faced incredible hardships for following Jesus. He faced beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, rejection. But he could say with confidence that none of those sufferings compared to the glory that God was working in him and through him.

The same is true for us. When we choose to forgive someone who hurt us, it's hard...but it frees us from bitterness. When we give sacrificially to help others, it costs us something...but it connects us to God's heart for the world. When we love people who are difficult to love, it's exhausting...but it makes us more like Jesus.

The "hard to swallow" aspects of faith aren't punishments or tests. They're invitations to become the people God created us to be. They're opportunities to discover that God's way really is better than our way, even when it's harder.

Personal Application: What "hard to swallow" aspect of following Jesus has actually made your life better in the long run? How might you embrace rather than resist the challenging parts of faith, trusting that God is using them to transform you?

Prayer: God, help us trust you when following you feels difficult. Remind us that you ask hard things of us not to make us miserable, but to make us whole. When we're tempted to choose the easy way over your way, give us courage to choose transformation over comfort. Help us taste and see that your way is good, even when it's hard to swallow at first. Amen.