For Those On A Difficult Path
We all experience various amounts of difficulty and hardships in our lives, but for some there is a greater level of struggle and pain.
In considering the tough things that I faced and am facing, I chose to look to examples in Bible scripture, and in doing so, I have gained three perspectives which I will eventually share in this post, but first I’d like to highlight the lives of three people.
Joseph
Genesis 37—50 covers the life of Joseph. He had severe hardships including being sold into slavery by his brothers and being placed in prison despite his innocence. The horrific things that occurred in his life served to propel him to become the second in command of a foreign nation and to be in the position of saving that nation and his family which would eventually become the nation of Israel.
Joseph said to his brothers 22 years after they had sold him, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today, (Genesis 50:20–22, ESV).
Joseph recognized that all his suffering came about so that much good could be done. He had an opportunity to see the wonderful fruit of his hardships during his lifetime. However, there are individuals in scripture who did not see the good that their suffering would produce such as Jeremiah.
Jeremiah
Throughout the ages, the book within the Bible which bears his name has served to instruct, encourage, and warn scores of people and will continue to do so until the return of Jesus Christ.
During his ministry, Jeremiah was mocked, beaten, imprisoned, and his message was not headed by those he spoke to. His only companion was an individual named Baruch who served as his scribe.
Jeremiah reached a point in which his discouragement would lead him to say, “Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed, (Jerimiah 20:14, ESV)!
Even Baruch reached a point of despondency, (Jeremiah 45), but both he and Baruch would go on to faithfully fulfill their callings and the last we read of them in scripture reveals they were taken to Egypt against their will due to Gedaliah, a man who was appointed governor by the conquering Babylonians, being assassinated by Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and ten other men. The Jews fled out of fear of reprisal for their act. Jeremiah continued to rebuke them while in Egypt.
The Bible is silent on how Jeremiah and Baruch died, but tradition recorded in sources outside of the Bible states that Jeremiah was stoned to death due to the irritation of those whom he reprimanded. Whether this is true or not I think it is safe to say that neither Jerimiah nor Baruch had an opportunity to see any good fruit develop as a result of the things they suffered. But we can now in hindsight observe the benefit of the things they endured.
Jesus
Our Lord lived a hard life. After being born, a feeding trough (manger) for animals served as his crib, (Luke 2:7). His family had to flee to another nation to prevent him from being killed, (Matthew 2:13-15). We are not told what happened to Joseph, the man tasked with being a father to him on earth, but Joseph likely died at some point. This would have placed the burden of caring for the family on Jesus’ shoulders. He had to provide for his mother Mary and according to Mark 6:3, he would have had a minimum of six siblings to care for also.
His public ministry began with him being baptized and then he was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit where he fasted for forty days, and forty nights, and Satan unsuccessfully tried to lure him into sin. He goes on to choose twelve disciples who would have been rejected by any other rabbi at the time. They are not an easy group to do ministry with and one of them, Judas, is stealing money from the treasury of his ministry, (John 12:6).
Judas eventually betrays him and although he had done no wrong, he is arrested, falsely accused, beaten, flogged, nailed to a cross, and died.
If that were the end of his story, humanity would have no hope. After three days he rose from the grave and many bore witness to him being alive again, (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
Conclusion
Joseph lived a hard life but had an opportunity to see good come from all that he was subjected to during his lifetime.
Jerimiah suffered tremendously and never saw any positive results from his work toward leading his nation to repentance. However, the second he left this Earth and entered eternity, I’m sure he recognized instantly that it was all worth it.
Jesus had a difficult life and he saw great things occur as a result of his suffering throughout his time here, but his life ended with him being unjustly executed. He did not remain in his tomb but rose from the dead and spent 40 days ministering to his disciples before ascending back to Heaven.
In the lives of Joseph, Jerimiah, and Jesus we see a few potential experiences for us all as we walk in God’s will for our lives.
We may live difficult lives like Joseph, but at some point, all of our trials may lead to a form of good that we previously were unable to fathom.
Life may be difficult right up to our last breath such as the likely case for Jerimiah and we may not see any positive results from our suffering until we step over into eternity.
If we, no matter how difficult life may be, hold on to our faith in Jesus (Romans 12:9) and “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,” (Hebrews 12:1-2), we will one day complete our time on Earth and when we enter eternity to be with him we will realize “that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us,” (Romans 8:18).
Our lives may be difficult and hard, but through faith in Jesus, our eternity can be wonderful beyond measure.
