Principle: Expect Resistance

Introduction: Train like you fight is proverbial wisdom for a reason. If you want to win, you have to put in the hours, days, weeks, and months of training. There is no shortcut to mission success. You will suffer setbacks and disappointments. When it comes to our inner spiritual lives, our mindset, our worldview, etc. I think sometimes we think the same logic does not apply. But it does. 

Just as a matter of transparency, one of my weaknesses is overestimating people’s sense of honor. I am certainly a great sinner (just ask my wife), but I have been guilty oftentimes in my life of assuming, “Ah, he’s a good guy; he would never do something like that …” kind of thinking. But then I get the hard slap of reality. And the sad reality is, it hurts. Because people let each other down. We all do. We have invariably been let down by others, but we have also let others down. No one is without responsibility here. So I do not speak as one who is without blame/responsibility here, too. 

God Speaks to This in Scripture:   In Psalm 41:9, the poet writes, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” There is something exceptionally human and viscerally painful about betrayal and abandonment by those for whom one cares, especially when you don’t know what you’ve done wrong to merit such treatment, if anything. I had a couple leave my Sunday school class awhile back without so much as a text message, email, handshake, or anything. Just vanished. And it hurt me. Why? Because I had done everything I could for years to love them, make them feel welcome, give the husband books to encourage their new Christian walk, books appropriate for their level, provide fellowship meals, etc. But they left. The painful thing was its lack of closure. No explanation. Just vanished. Now, if I were an uncaring under-shepherd, I would not bat an eye. I would just keep on truckin’. But that’s not my nature. But as the cliche goes, it is what it is. I think this is why verses like Psalm 41:9 are in Scripture for us. Nothing is new under the sun, of course. Human experiences both repeat and rhyme through the annals of history (Ecclesiastes 1:9). 

Encouragement/takeaway: I think this is why we never should tire of studying the life of Christ. Scripture teaches that he was abandoned, forsaken, betrayed, and yet he died for the sins of his people. He prayed for their forgiveness. He gave himself for them. He loved them till the end. Though reviled, he did not revile in return, etc. A non-negotiable of the Christian life is that God ordains our suffering so that we might learn to appreciate and adore the Savior, Christ himself, whom we have betrayed over and over again by way of our sin. And yet he continued to love us to the end.