We should never be surprised when following Christ leads us into costly places. The One we follow went before us through rejection, sorrow, obedience, suffering, and finally the cross. Peter writes, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). The Christian road was never promised to be painless.
Jesus Himself made that clear. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). Discipleship reaches far beyond admiration for Christ. It means belonging to Him when obedience costs us comfort, reputation, relationships, opportunity, and sometimes much more.
We often imagine that suffering must mean something has gone wrong. Scripture teaches us to think differently. Jesus told His disciples, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). There are afflictions that come simply because we live in a fallen world, and there are sufferings that come because faithfulness to Christ places us against the current of that world.
Yet we are never walking a road Christ does not understand. Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). He knows rejection, betrayal, grief, exhaustion, injustice, and pain. When He calls us to endure, He speaks as the One who has already walked through suffering Himself.
This is why hardship should drive us deeper into Christ rather than make us question whether He has abandoned us. Paul says that if we suffer with Him, we will also be glorified with Him, and then adds, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:17–18). The road may wound us, but it does not end at the wound.
So when obedience becomes costly, we should remember whose footsteps are already there. Christ has gone before us, Christ walks with us, and Christ has promised that suffering will never have the final word. The path marked by the cross ends in resurrection glory.