If you were building a house, how would you judge the success of the building? Would you judge it by the cost of materials, the time required to build, the effort you expended, the set backs you endured, the frustrations expierenced with contractors? Or would you not judge it by the finished product? Would you not wait to see how well it is built, how comfortable it is for your family, how it stands against the elements and its asthetic value?
If you were to pursue a college degree, when would you judge it as being a worthwhile undertaking? Would the cost of tuition or the diffficulty of the exams or the hours required in study be the deciding factor or would it not be that you received a degree that enabled you to enjoy a career and its benefits?
The point I am making is that the success of a journey is not determined by the difficulties one encounters along the way, difficulties come and go. It is not determined by the cost, costs rise and fall. It is not determined by its ease, the level of difficulty vacilates with the changing terrain. You judge the success of a journey according to whether or not you arrived at the desired destination.
This is the reality of the Christian walk. We will experience difficulty along the way. As a child of God, you will have bad experiences along with the good. Your journey through life takes you through enemy terriorty and attacks from the Evil One are guaranteed as you move toward your heavenly calling. You will find that life in the Son brings heat from Satan as well as cooling shade from the Spirit.
What makes this journey with Christ worth the trip is not necessarily the smoothness of the sailing but rather the skill of the Captain to bring us to that land where the blessings of God will never be interrupted again, where life is found in its fullness and death is emptied of its power. As Paul writes in Romans 8:18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Jus' Sayn.
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