Every calling is a gift. Every gift requires sacrifice. Every sacrifice brings a reward. Every reward is only gained by giving the gift, making the sacrifice, chasing the calling that God has given. The greater the calling, the greater the gift. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward. The greater the reward, the more worth every ounce of sacrifice it took to get there.
God the Father paid the ultimate sacrifice. He asked His Son to make a sacrifice for every one of us. His Son begged to get out of it. But God did not give in. Despite His Son begging so intensely as to sweat tears of blood, God stayed the course and directed His Son to go through agony for a time.
There is nothing that could relieve or lighten the agony of sacrifice that had to be endured. Jesus came from heaven and was born into a cave amongst peasants. He worked hard as a carpenter’s son for 30 years. Then, for three years he roamed homeless teaching and healing people. People were constantly trying to kill him from his birth throughout his ministry life. Jesus did not merely suffer three days. He gave up heaven to come here. Every day was painful sacrifice, culminating in the ultimate death. But the calling on Jesus from God was never about the sacrifice of pain, toil or death. The calling was to bring HEALING to all people, reaching them with the love of the Father.
Every person has a calling. The greater the person, the greater the calling. The greater the calling, the greater the sacrifice. We’re not promised for life to be easy. We’re promised difficulty. But we’re promised that God has a plan and will, eventually, use every bit of sacrifice along the way for His good purposes. We often cannot see or fathom any good that could possibly come of the pain of sacrifice along the way. But it happens every time.
My favorite quote from Mother Theresa is: “I know God will never give me more than I can handle, but sometimes I wish He didn’t trust me so much.”
The strength of Jesus or any of us is not displayed by us not struggling, not begging for relief, not asking questions and demanding answers, not questioning if this is all worth it or necessary. No. The strength of Jesus and every one of us comes from feeling and struggling through all of that and somehow pressing on. We may sometimes only move forward in a crawl, we may sometimes miss a step, we may sometimes not see the next step in front of us, but to keep plodding onward. This is the display of courage and strength.
The picture of Jesus’s strength isn’t in His resurrection. The picture of His strength is in walking forward on Palm Sunday, walking forward into Gethsemane, walking forward carrying His cross through the streets to Galgotha, all the while knowing what’s to come and the horrible sacrifice it will be. He struggled, He cried, He begged for it to not happen, but He did it anyway. His mom watched in horror as her oldest child went through agony. His brothers, friends and disciples watched in horror. They were torn apart, heartbroken, terrified for his life and their own. Jesus begged for relief for himself and those he loved. But the calling was greater than the sacrifice. The sacrifice always hurts us and those we love. But the calling is worth the sacrifice. The calling is always worth the sacrifice. That’s the promise of Hope we have from Him.
Shoes for the hopeless 