I felt God spoke these words to me last week, almost in an audible voice. I must have read them hundreds of times, but somehow this time they were spoken directly into my spirit.

We can apply these words to ourselves, bracing ourselves for what is ahead, but it’s much harder to apply them to another, especially one we love dearly. How we would rather suffer than see another go through the mill!

However, if we are to be instrumental in bringing others nearer to Christ, then we must encourage them to face their cross too. There may be choices that we have to encourage another to make, which will involve hardness, endurance or perseverance, but if we truly believe they shall find the gold of His presence at the end of it, then it’s worth all the hardship.

If another that we love is to find the Christ, the Beloved of the soul, then they must learn to endure hardness. This is not the hardness of a human kind, where man sets himself physical tasks to better himself, but it’s an inner hardness that is so much more costly. It touches the innermost core of our being dealing with the ego, the essential person. It affects the pride and self consciousness and all that makes up the person they have become.

Carrying the cross is about dealing with our essential character. Often we’re asked to do the very thing we don’t want to do, the thing that makes us cringe inside. It deals with who we are.

When asked to do something that is difficult don’t automatically assume it’s wrong. It could be that Christ is bringing a deeper part of your reserved being into the Light. Why? Because He wants all of you! To the one who gives all, there will come the greatest revelation of the person of Jesus Christ.

Do we not want this for ourselves and for our loved ones? Then don’t be afraid to endure hardness or to watch as another endures hardness. It could be the making of them, the very thing that will bring them to the gold they have been seeking all their days. It may be by easier choices and softening things that we actually prevent ourselves, or another, from finding the One whom we are truly seeking.

‘Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.‘ 2 Timothy 2:3