Is the life Jesus lived on earth the type of life you would like to live in your world today? All believers admire His character, virtues, powerful deeds and words and want to imitate those elements. What is often overlooked is His journey included rejection, harsh criticism or harassment from religious leaders, and all-night prayer time before his arrest; the parts of which developed the courage we esteem. Which aspect of His life is it that you want to imitate? The miracle power or what He learned through suffering? (Heb. 5:8) Does it all come in the same package or do you think you can be selective?
To be very transparent, I’ve been known to selectively pray His prayer, “May this cup pass from me,” when facing overwhelming odds. While I avoided praying the last part of His prayer, “nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.” The most physical and spiritually traumatic moment I’ve experienced was when presented with a challenge of what I had classified as a distasteful assignment. The Spirit very forcefully asked, “Are you saying you will NOT do this?” Excruciating as it was to submit to Him then, I now see it was a necessary choice in order for me to see the incredible victories that would follow.
I’ve come to believe that when a person prays for an easier life, his/her prayer is misguided—unless the person wants to be a wimpy believer—if there is such a thing. If we want to be a stronger person than we are, we must to pray to that end and not be a whiner when we encounter mountains in our path. Christ will not lead us to greatness through an easy or self-indulgent life. An easy life does not lift us up, it only takes us down. Heaven is always above us, and we must continually be looking toward it. Paul wrote Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong (1 Corinthians 16:13, NLT2).
God calls us out of the survival lifestyle that has become our norm into a life of even greater discomfort where we are less able to control our circumstances. He did this with Joseph, David, Gideon and scores of others. Gideon was managing to survive by hiding while beating the hulls off heads of wheat in order to feed his family. In that most deplorable condition, God called him “a mighty man of valor” (Judges 6:12) then called him to save the Hebrews from their intimidating and contemptable enemy with only 300 men and paltry weapons. That sounds to me like an invitation to go from an abysmal lifestyle into a death defying one. If you fast forward, you find because he stepped out into the terrifying, uncomfortable life, God empowered him to do this remarkable miracle we remember still today.
Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal preacher who served in the mid-1800s said, “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle.” Moses told the Hebrews, The LORD will hand over to you the people who live there, and you must deal with them as I have commanded you. So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you. (Deuteronomy 31:5-6, NLT2). God challenged Joshua and many others through history in a similar way.
With all the mass murders in the news, we live in perilous days when those around us desperately need to hear God’s word spoken to them and see a real man or woman of God. God is calling each of us out of our comfort zone to be courageously willing to position ourselves to lovingly offer hope and truth to those who have lost their moorings.
It is hard work and difficulties that ultimately lead us to greatness, for greatness is not found by walking on a smooth path laid out for us through a romantic walk in the meadow. It is found by taking initiative to follow His whisper in our innermost being to the life Jesus lived.