Suffer much, suffer little
It is a lesson I must learn over and over again. I've heard it in church, I've read it in Carson's How Long, O Lord?, I've experienced it in life and yet I continually struggle to remember that suffering is an integral part of being a Christian. It's been granted to us who believe in Christ by God himself (Phil 1:29). It's what we have been called to because Christ also suffered for us and left us his example so that we might follow in his footsteps (1 Pet 2:21). It's what we must endure so that we might also be glorified in Christ and be found to be one of the children and heirs of God (Rom 8:17).
I used to think that the suffering talked about in the Bible was purely hatred and persecution for being Christian. Now I wonder if it also encompasses suffering that arises simply from being Christian. I don't just mean the subdued derision that ripples around the lunchroom when you express a Biblical viewpoint to your unbelieving work colleagues. I'm also talking about the sacrifice of that part of your paycheck that you make towards the ministries you support; the sacrifice of your time as you seek to serve and love the people in your church and your community; the sacrifice of your energy and even your health and well-being as you seek to serve the Lord wherever you are (like the missionary with the weak stomach who went on the field anyway and was sick every morning for 15 years). All these things—your money, your time, your self—all belong to God and, in what you do, you practice good stewardship over what he has given you. But in doing so, you suffer.
Your suffering may only be little. Your reduced standard of living includes a car whose frequent maladies keep you sighing and dipping into your pockets to get it fixed. You experience a slight increase in fatigue due to a proportional decrease in rest. You have difficulty falling asleep at night due to the stressful nature of your ministry which isn't that stressful, just stressful enough to keep you worrying. Perhaps you have even given up your long-held dreams and ambitions for the Lord's sake. But, quantity and comparisons with what the saints endure overseas aside, it is still suffering nonetheless.
Okay, perhaps it is too dramatic to call these sorts of things “suffering”; I can't think up a better word but if you can, please let me know. In any case, it is good knowing that, small though these sufferings are, they are certainly “not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18). All that we have sacrificed for the sake of our Lord—great and small—we should learn to regard as “rubbish” in order that we, like Paul, might gain Christ (Phil 3:8). And though we might share abundantly (or not so abundantly) in his sufferings, we know that in him we shall share abundantly in his comfort too (2 Cor 1:5).
The trick, I guess, is trying to remember this in practice, and be reminded next time I give up my Saturday afternoon to go out doing cold-turkey evangelism.