If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times: “The Church would be so much easier to serve in… if it weren’t for the people!” And while I can agree; some people are hard to love because they neglect to treat their church family with the respect and love they’d like to be treated with. Some people are lonely or without blood-related family they can rely on, and so they lean on their church family more than the average person or they come across as clingy. Even more than that, there are some that are newer to the faith and have a more juvenile view of theology or their perception of God is a little more skewed.

I say the word “slavery” and what do you think?

Do you think modern-day slavery? Do you think of vulnerable people that are snatched, stolen and taken to toil in terrible conditions and lifestyles?

Do you think of America in the 1800’s? When African people were sold off to work in fields and treated as less than even animals?

For church this week, Sam and I decided to go to an in-person service. During the sermon, the pastor started talking about Paul. Specifically, how Paul and some of the people that traveled with him went through some pretty severe persecution for being preachers and teachers for Christ. And while I can agree with what he was trying to say, which was that Paul and his friends counted their suffering as joy for the cause of Christ and that suffering was the worldly price for Godly obedience; I didn’t agree with his delivery of the point.

When I was a little girl, my grandma had this bookshelf with a series of short story books on it. I remember I loved to look at them, the spines straight like soldiers in a row, all the same color, all the same size, and lined from one end of the shelf to the other, yet all incredibly different on the inside.

Sure, James. Easier said than done. That’s always what I think when I hear the above verses. The fact of the matter is, no one wants to talk about suffering much less go through it. And let’s face it: it’s always going to be easy for people who have never walked through your same test to tell you to delight in the fact that you’re being tested. It’s always going to be our first, knee-jerk reaction to say, “Well, it’s easy for you to say, because you’re not living with this trainwreck of a situation.”