📖 "Take with me your share of hardship [passing through the difficulties which you are called to endure], like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier in active service gets entangled in the [ordinary business] affairs of civilian life; [he avoids them] so that he may please the one who enlisted him to serve. 5 And if anyone competes as an athlete [in competitive games], he is not crowned [with the wreath of victory] unless he competes according to the rules." -2 Timothy 2:3-5 AMPC
We are soldiers in the army of the Lord, and we are called to prevail and conquer regardless of the hardship that comes our way. God has a destiny for us he wants fulfilled but that will not happen if we crumble under pressure and hardship. Paul went through many different difficulties in his life yet at the end of his journey he was able to say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. Let us embrace our calling to take on hardship because as we stay with God, we will emerge victorious. We are more than conquerors and greater is He who is in us than he that is in the world. We have the ability and the goods to overcome every obstacle that comes our way. Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:22-27 talks about how much hardship he had gone through in his life, but he did not quit or give up. God has equipped us with the ability to survive the hardships we are called to endure. May we always remember that we can do all things because Christ is the one who strengthens us according to Philippians 4:13.