Now, let's relate that to our own pain. Suffering, though unwanted, is necessary for us to see Jesus. It is no use romanticizing Christianity as though pain should not be a part of the process. Re-birth like birth always requires it. But as any mother would tell you, the joy that the face of the newborn brings is worth any amount of suffering. Now as believers, there is Someone that we love above all else. A face we long to see. It is how we are made. He has designed trials to build our strength. These trials may be described as the guarded walls and ramparts of the castle, and our directive is to charge the citadel to get to what we most long for.
It is not that we crave suffering. It is that we crave something else and when suffering stands between us and our desire, then we will suffer in order to get it. The enemy tries to "steal, kill and destroy" our joy that is found only in Jesus. But it is in the suffering that we see Him most clearly. Pain has a way of bringing what really matters into focus. But there is a twist in this illustration. I have played a trick here. For we are not the ones who desire but the desirable one in this story. While it is true that we are to go hard after Jesus, we certainly are not rescuing Him. We are the ones that needed rescuing...and through the greatest suffering that any one Person has ever known...we were. Oh that we may "share in the fellowship of His suffering"! Thank you Jesus.