One of the questions I often level at prospective pioneers in any of our training programs is:
What is your worst-case scenario?
We often imagine ourselves living in obedience to Jesus with no few noble ambitions; we desire to pray more, live more sacrificially, snap a little slower at the wanting driver next to us on the highway. We want to “do difficult things and die without regret.” We want to “go big or go home.” But then by an unnecessary default, our fantasies of being “better Christians” include some kind of de facto dream life. No one daydreams about suffering. No one daydreams about God not answering their prayers the way they would prefer. In our fantasies, all those things work out.
Because obedience and “best-case scenarios” seem like they should go together? All our impediments and unrealized dreams are probably because we aren’t being as obedient as we could be, right? If we were just a little more obedient, all the things wrong with our lives would clear up a bit. We’d get out of our own way, and God’s blessings could just flow to us like a mighty river of divine favor.
Trouble is, Jesus isn’t Buddha and the Bible offers very little by way of karma. Sometimes God’s best and highest intention for your life imposes (or at least allows) some kind of dreadful ill. Some kind of loss. Some kind of thing we did not dream about. Some kind of “not-best-case-scenario.”
But as the Shulamite sang, “Come north wind, come south wind!”[1] we know that the holy Potter will use either blistering adversity or soothing comforts to conform us into the Image of Jesus—the only thing that decides the strategy is effectiveness.[2] A trusting heart can sing the same, knowing Jesus is our “great reward,”[3] our better beautiful. Anything less than Jesus is destined for the trash heap.[4] Even if Jesus leads our lives that look, at least for a season, like a worst-case scenario, obedience earns nothing. It simply liberates you to experience Him better.
This is a worthwhile process to submit oneself to if indeed Jesus is who He says He is—if in fact He is the Way, the Truth, the Life, the only path of access to the Father of lights and glory.[5] If in fact we must be born again,[6] if in fact we must be adopted and transferred from a death-laden dominion to the glorious Kingdom of “the Son of His love,”[7] brought into a better family. The exclusivity of Jesus bears down upon us both for salvation, and for satisfaction.
And it sets us up for a world of isolation.
“Be in the world, not of it,”[8] we’re told—and for good reason. It would be difficult to bear faithful verbal and practical witness of the Good News of the Kingdom soon to be restored to Israel to all nations and people groups[9] if you don’t have anything to do with it.[10] We are not to be isolated because we “do life” and “run with” people who live just like us in our little Christian bubbles colonizing all corners of suburbia and gentrified city blocks. We’re isolated simply because our allegiances exclude us from the lusts of the flesh in this age.[11] Therefore, “in this world [we] will have trouble, but take heart” because Jesus has overcome the world.[12] The Lion of the tribe of Judah who looks unmistakably like a scarred, once-slaughtered Lamb has overcome all the things Adam fell easy prey to.[13]
So the triumph of “overcoming” is forever marked by the whips and nails of the Place of the Skull.[14] Obedience is wrought through suffering. Even if you’re Jesus.[15]
In living through this “present evil age”[16] in a dominion of darkness with allegiances to the Kingdom of light, we face persecution. Sometimes we face inconveniences. These are not synonymous. We suffer persecution; sometimes we simply suffer. Inconveniences, however, are just inconveniences.
Suffering can be adversity. It can be the sickness that hospitals can’t seem to solve and the perfect Father above has not yet healed. It can be the loss you never anticipated, the call you never wanted to receive, the funeral you never wanted to attend. You can and will (and likely have) suffered a great many things in your life. Much of that is just the consequence of the curse Jesus delivers us from.
Suffering persecution is explicitly and specifically on behalf of the name of Jesus. This requires, then, that you bear the name of Jesus and behave accordingly. Persecution can look like getting beat up or arrested because you were sharing the Gospel.[17] It could look like getting gunned down in the streets of a Muslim nation because the local jihadis don’t appreciate Bible-bearing foreigners engaging their city.[18] It could look like atheist friends dropping you or something petty like professors assigning bonus homework once they find out you’re Christian (this one is a stupid but true story). And you can hold your head up, knowing any loss you suffer simply because you were living in obedience to Jesus will be remembered and rewarded.[19] In the end, nothing is truly lost.
But here is where we must draw a careful distinction between persecution and inconvenience. You’re alive in the era between the Cross’ revelation and the Crown’s full manifestation. No matter where you live, your government is influenced and informed by sub-par wisdom at best. We’re all born under the influence of “wisdom from below,”[20] and (generally speaking) people are just trying to get by the best they can. Wisdom from below condemns us and we need deliverance, to be sure, but if pagans behave like pagans and they bump into someone who just happens to be Christian, that’s not persecution. It’s an inconvenience. It’s a splinter in your foot. Keep going.
We cannot claim to be persecuted if we are not actually doing anything to merit persecution. We especially cannot cry, “Persecution!” if really we’re only dealing with consequences of sin’s curse upon a culture. We should instead cry, “Maranatha!” and thrust all our energy and resources into filling up as many life boats as we can from the flotsam of lost souls on these tempestuous seas. And we cannot claim to be persecuted if we are walking the way of a bully rather than the way of the cruciform.
The myth of persecution leads us to believe that we are being persecuted simply because we’re experiencing petty consequences of the curse post-exile from Eden.
The myth of persecution baits us into a cowardly lack of resilience.
The myth of persecution pulls you back from ever putting yourself in the position to be persecuted to begin with.
The myth of persecution will kill your fruit before you ever bear it.[21]
Our responsibility requires incredible resilience, but we are wired to be such. We are crafted for resiliency.[22] We are built for endurance.[23] We can do difficult things and die without regret. We can bear faithful witness of the Gospel of the Kingdom to everyone everywhere, but we all have room to grow up a little bit. The whole Body of Jesus does— and whole the Body of Jesus will.[24] The Bride will be “made ready.”[25] In fact, this maturity and “readiness” to be a suitable help meet for the Lion-Lamb who overcame is and will be forged only through suffering. Consider these apostolic passages:
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience [steadfastness, endurance]. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.[26]
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.[27]
When Easy Company held the Bois Jacques woods outside Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, they spent the coldest winter on record in foxholes without basic supplies. They didn’t have enough morphine to treat every injured man (which was most in the company). They didn’t have enough bullets. They had to scrounge for boots. These were inconveniences. But these soldiers did not devote their time and energy to complaining for their lack; they survived the persecution they suffered from the Nazi military by committing to themselves and each other that they would reach their objective, fulfill their mission, and overcome. And they did. They endured—and endured well. And they made critical contributions in that freezing forest that would turn the tide of the Second World War.
Allegiance to Jesus, who stands exclusively preeminent,[28] elevates our eyes and priorities above the “cares of this life.”[29] We can (and must!) live best- or worst-case scenarios with unflinching commitment to obedience, to our mission in this age, without allowing ourselves get bogged down by petty playground bumps and bruises. We cannot allow ourselves to be discouraged by inconveniences. We must “soldier up,”[30] set our eyes on our own joy set before us—the return of Jesus and coming restoration of all things—and invite as many people to the Wedding as we can in the meantime.[31] We must not allow the myth of persecution to discourage and hinder us from doing so. We are the people liberated by the power of the Spirit of the Living God to “love [our] enemies, and pray for those who persecute [us].”[32]
Even the ones who actually persecute us.
Maranatha.
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] Song of Solomon 4:16
[2] Isaiah 64:8; Romans 9:21
[3] Genesis 15:1
[4] Philippians 3:7-8
[5] John 14:6; Ephesians 1:17; James 1:17
[6] John 3:3
[7] Colossians 1:13
[8] John 17:16
[9] Matthew 24:14; 28:18-20; Acts 1:2-8
[10] 1 Corinthians 5:10
[11] 1 John 2:16
[12] John 16:33
[13] Revelation 5:1-10
[14] ibid.; John 20:25-30
[15] Hebrews 5:8
[16] Galatians 1:4
[17] Matthew 5:11-12; 10:22; see also Acts 4 and 12
[18] See https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen/militants-kill-american-teacher-in-yemen-idUKBRE82H05F20120318 or https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-shootings-iraq- baghdad-3b6502ed249f7045221f1abb908d9618 for recent examples
[19] Matthew 19:28-30
[20] James 3:14-18
[21] John 15:1-27
[22] (Recommended Reading) The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter (Rodale Books, 2021)
[23] Romans 8:28-39
[24] Ephesians 4:11-16
[25] Revelation 19:7
[26] James 1:2-4, ESV
[27] 1 Peter 1:3-9, ESV
[28] Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 1:18
[29] Luke 8:14; 21:34
[30] Thomas, D. “Soldier Up.” FAI STUDIOS, 15 January 2021. Retrieved from https://www.faistudios.org/articles/soldier-up
[31] Hebrews 10:36; 12:2; Matthew 22:1-14
[32] Matthew 5:44-48
