Counting Up the Cost--Is It Worth It?

My first semester at seminary ends Friday. Every time I say the word "Friday" it seems like a release of tension, a release of pressure; a great liberation. It isn't that it was the workload at all, but that the past three months has been a sea change in my life. I know that when I go home in a few days, I'm going to get the customary "how was school?" questions in all of their shapes, sizes, and varieties. Truth be told, this semester was hard on me in a multitude of ways. I'm at a place now where I give thanks for the trials and suffering that I endured over the past three months. Because of that, I believe something is stirring me in me to answer that initial question differently. Would I normally answer that question with placidity so that I could appease myself more than the people asking? Perhaps.

Getting back to the sea change (I really love that term--such a mental image). When asked how my semester went, I'll be striving to focus on the honesty of my initial experience at seminary. Sure, the academic aspect of school was challenging and beneficial in a million ways, but my personal life saw upheaval on an almost daily basis. I lost dear loved ones to Alzheimer's and sickness, I was separated from many people I love whilst suffering, I felt physically ill on a daily basis, and my self-confidence was nearly destroyed. I often railed against God and asked Him if all of this suffering was worth it. I demanded to know why He would take me from a spiritual place that I felt safe and secure to a place where I felt abandoned, alone, and rejected--and in that question, He showed me why. In those broken moments, God showed me who I belonged to; I haven't encountered that in years.

Safe and secure isn't always a good thing. No, I don't think that God deliberately planned all of the pain and suffering over the past three months (that's an entirely different theological discussion you do not want me to start ranting about), but in that pain He made Himself real to me in huge, loving, tangible, and awesome ways. In that complacency, I fell into the lie that I didn't need an education, I didn't need to make new friends, I didn't need to learn anymore in order to effectively minister to the lost and broken. It's in that thinking that the enemy traps us into ultimately rejecting God in pursuit of hollow religion. Christ told us that we would suffer for His sake--and he definitely meant it.

It's in that suffering that we begin to see the cost of following Him. It's in that suffering that we instinctively begin to wonder if it's worth it. 

I'm here to say that yes, it is more than worth it. Jesus has a monopoly on suffering; suffering for all of our sakes. We can easily warp our suffering into a selfish pity-party instead of rejoicing in what has been done for us. I have my days where I don't even want to rejoice in the fact that I have an eternity in glory awaiting me. It's much easier to whine, cry, and declare "poor, poor me" when it seems that nobody is listening--and I am so ashamed of that. Who am I to declare that my suffering somehow is more valid and important than the countless others who are also suffering? Christ's monopoly means that my suffering has ultimately been defeated. That means that everybody's suffering has been defeated.That's not to say that Christians won't suffer--that is to say that our pains and trials do not define us. Christ's victory does. Without suffering, the triumphant Messiah has no place in our lives. Suffering wears down the guise of "self" that tricks us into thinking that we don't need Christ's sacrifice and we end up rejecting Him.

Pain has the potential to wear down the barriers that we erect until we have no choice but to lift our hands and cry out to a Father who wants to heal us. So, as I look back over this semester and how I'll respond to that inevitable question, I'll answer honestly and with joy. I'll answer with a thankful heart that took dysmal circumstances and used them for His glory. Had it not been for the heartbreak, I wouldn't have drawn closer to Him. In the television series "The Tudors," Henry VIII's banished first wife Catherine of Aragon had some wise words to say when her life was turned upside down:

"You know what? Given the choice, I would always choose suffering. It is in that suffering that I feel God so closely." 

I'm not going to give a challenge like I always do. I'm going to beg you to not let your suffering consume you, and to realize that the cost of knowing God, whether it be full of trials and suffering or no, is so worth it.