Holiness, not Happiness

Separate scathing rebukes by 2 brothers-in-christ on respectively my views on singleness and worldliness had gotten me to reflect on my values and motivations in life. (Sisters-in-christ, you need to be less lovingly gentle lah. It's easier for me to get feedback from you!)

So it was like an arrow hitting the bull's eye of my heart when a speaker preaches that "it is Holiness, not Happiness that God has called us to." He uses the character of Joseph to illustrate his point. That although God led Joseph to be ostracised by his family, framed by Potiphor's wife and thrown into prison, how God had used those circumstances to mould Joseph into a man who went on to inherit a double portion of His blessings in the Promised Land through his 2 sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. (Personal Note: I personally will need to study further into this passage to ascertain if I agree with the last sentence.)

Truth is, sometimes I wonder if all the efforts of striving to be holy is worth it. Sometimes, it feels like a struggle for nothing, a sure-lose situation which unreasonably places others in a superior position which I must perpetually struggle to kowtow to. I am tired of struggling with and considering so many more factors in my already complicated mind; I resent that I must be so humiliated; I am frustrated at letting others have control over my well-being through their whims and fancies because I must defer in order that their interests are also considered.

I am tired and I'd like to not think so much. I'd like to luxuriate in just considering for myself. But then I remember my Lord and what He has to endure in order to make me clean: The Master washing His disciples' feet so that we will follow His example; The King standing silent in front of governor Pilate so that the Father's will be done; God Himself hanging on the cross so that holy wrath may pour on Him and then His created, humble man, may freely come to Him.

Even if I'm not called to suffer persecution for His name, or to bring people en masse to Him, my cross is this: Through the mundane and routine, with His Love behind me and His Holiness before me, may I faithfully trod the road of Mercy guided by His ultimate Wisdom.