“For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” – Ecclesiastes 1:18
Living intentionally for Christ is a high calling. Sometimes it feels like a beacon of light praising and proclaiming the Most High on a mountaintop. Other times, it feels like swimming through tumultuous waves of evil with a flashlight.
A life following Christ is often depicted as a highlight reel of hope, peace, joy and love, but the truth is a double-edged sword. With salvation comes hope and freedom, but it also comes with an unveiling. God opens our eyes to His eternal goodness, but also to grievous evils in the world and within our own hearts that intensify the need for His mercy.
The truth brings enlightenment of lies. The victory brings renewal through a battlefield. The wisdom brings understanding of darkness and light through tears.
Joy is always there resonating deep in the transformed soul, but it cannot be truly known without deep grief. Without the hate, we wouldn’t know the value of love. Without betrayal, we wouldn’t know the comfort of loyalty. Without the storms, we wouldn’t know the pleasure of peace.
Without the grueling weight of our depravity, we wouldn’t know the depths of the Savior’s sorrow or the magnitude of His resurrection. Without His wounds, we wouldn’t know the cost of our healing.
We serve a God who was stricken with sorrow for our transgressions and He chose us to be His vessels of faith here on this earth, but that faith is demonstrated through pain.
It is a high calling to live for the Savior.
He has called us to break. He has called us to seek. He has called us to proclaim. He has called us to weep.
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He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:3-6
We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. – 2 Corinthians 4:7-10
