The goal is worth it

If you want to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials. Be sincere of heart and steadfast. Do not be alarmed by adversity, but attach yourself to the Lord and do not leave him.

(Sirach 2:1-11)

Wow! A hard word from the Lord.

Now I have read it again slowly and tried to stand back from those words inorder to see if I can work out what it means to me. The first question is surely trials happen to everyone? Do you have to be a Christian in order to have a hard time? The answer is of course no! There are plenty of decent non-Christian people around who have a hard or harder time. But the message seems akin to training advice! To an athlete we would say 'no pain - no gain' and we would expect them to take it on board. And expect the pain as part of their training regime? To a Christian who wants to be a disciple we would need to say prepare yourself for trials - emotional or physical pain. But the goal is worth it.

But it also says 'Be sincere of heart and steadfast' - this must be more important than that within us that endures adversity. It is our Spirit led hearts and faithfulness that gives the prime witness to others. If our sincerity of heart leads us to have the loving kindness of God in our lives - then we are on the right track. We are just human imperfect beings though! So we will stumble and fall. How we handle that is important and I will write about that soon.