Famous Christians Who Were Honest About Just How Hard Serving Christ and Holding on in Faith Really Is
Adoniram Judson
“My tears flow at the same time over the forsaken grave of my dear love and over the loathsome sepulcher of my own heart” (Ibid., 388). He retreated for forty days alone further into the Tiger-infested jungle, and wrote in one letter than he felt utter spiritual desolation. “God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I find him not (Ibid., 391.). “If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings”
Brother Yun
“Faced with such a dim future, I grumbled and complained to the Lord, and even accused him, “O God, I just want to serve you and spread your gospel, but now I’m stuck here in this cell and cannot even walk. You’re weak and failed to protect me! It was at this lowest point of my life that I bitterly complained to the Lord. I was 39 years old but saw no hope or future for me. I told the Lord, “When I was young you called me to preach your gospel in the west and south. How can I do that now? I’m sitting here in this prison with crushed legs and I’m resigned to rot in this place until the day I die. I’ll never see my family again. You have cheated me!” I felt just like Jeremiah. I was overwhelmed and it seemed as if the Lord had abandoned me to rot in prison forever. I cried out to the Lord, echoing Jeremiah’s words, “Oh God, why have you afflicted me so that I cannot be healed? I hoped for peace, but no good has come. Please Lord, do not despise me. I had so much grief stored up inside me, and it all started to gush out before the Lord. I sobbed, “Lord Jesus, just like Jeremiah said, everyone strives against me and curses me. I can’t take any more. I’ve reached the end of myself.” I wept so hard that my eyes became swollen from all my tears. Many times I asked him why I was in such pain. I could bear it no more. My heart was downcast and I was ready to give up.”
Gladys Aylward
“I was almost in despair. All night I worried and prayed, prayed and worried. I was at the end of my tether. If only I wasn't saddled with all these children, I thought bitterly. Nobody else bothered about them, why did I have to get myself and them into this mess?”
Charles Spurgeon
“IT is very unpleasant to our poor flesh and blood to suffer. Physical pain is a grievous infliction; mental agony or spiritual sorrow is still worse. Irons around the wrists can be worn till they fit easily; but when the iron enters into the soul, how it rusts the heart, and eats into the spirit! Perhaps, to some minds, that is the hardest of all sufferings which is not deserved at all, but which comes because we do not deserve it; I mean, that suffering which innocent persons are called to endure because of their innocence, when they are slandered and oppressed and persecuted, not for evil-doing, but for well-doing.”
Elisabeth Elliott
“And when I stood by my shortwave radio in the jungle of Ecuador in 1956 and heard that my husband was missing, and God brought to my mind the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.” You can imagine that my response was not terribly spiritual. I was saying, but Lord, You’re with me all the time. What I want is Jim. I want my husband. We had been married twenty-seven months after waiting five and a half years. Five days later I knew that Jim was dead. And God’s presence with me was not Jim’s presence. That was a terrible fact. God’s presence did not change the terrible fact that I was a widow and I expected to be a widow until I died because I thought it was a miracle I got married the first time. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever get married a second time, let alone a third time. God’s presence did not change the fact of my widowhood.” - From Her Book, Suffering is Never for Nothing
Samuel Rutherford
“If ever you would pleasure me, entreat the Lord for me, now when I am so comfortless, and so full of heaviness, that I am not able to stand under the burden any longer. The Almighty hath doubled His stripes upon me, for my wife is so sore tormented night and day, that I have wondered why the Lord tarrieth so long. My life is bitter unto me, and I fear the Lord be my contrair party. It is hard to keep sight of God in a storm, especially when He hides Himself, for the trial of His children. If He would be pleased to remove His hand, I have a purpose to seek Him more than I have done. Happy are they that can win away with their soul. I am afraid of His judgments. I bless my God that there is a death, and a heaven. I would weary to begin again to be a Christian, so bitter is it to drink of the cup that Christ drank of…”
Madame Guyon
“About this time I fell into a state of total privation which lasted nearly seven years. I seemed to myself cast down like Nebuchadnezzar, to live among beasts; a deplorable state...This state of emptiness, darkness, and impotency, went far beyond any trials I had ever yet met. "Is it possible," I cried, "that I have received so many graces and favors from God only to lose them;—that I have loved Him with so much ardor, but to be eternally deprived of Him; that His benefits have only produced ingratitude; His fidelity been repaid with infidelity; that my heart has been emptied of all creatures, and created objects, and filled with His blessed presence and love, in order now to be wholly void of divine power, and only filled with wanderings and created objects! I felt in myself such a pain as I never could bring any to comprehend, but such as have experienced it. I had no support, no confessor, no director, no friend, no councillor. I had lost all. And after God had taken from me one after another, He withdrew also Himself. I remained without any creature; and to complete my distress, I seemed to be left without God, who alone could support me in such a deeply distressing state.”
Amy Carmichael
“Do you still hold fast to your faith that He maketh your way perfect? It does not look perfect. It looks like a road that has lost its sense of direction; a broken road, a wandering road, a strange mistake. And yet, either it is perfect, or all that you have believed crumbles like a rope of sand in your hands. There is no middle choice between faith and despair. We are facing a crisis in life.”
Moses
“I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now---if I have found favor in your eyes---and do not let me face my own ruin." - Numbers 11:14-15
Elijah
""I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." 1 Kings 19:4
Jeremiah
“O LORD; remember me and care for me…think of how I suffer reproach for your sake. When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty. I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails? O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long. - Jeremiah 15:15-18, 20:7-8
Job
"May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, 'A boy is born!' That day—may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine upon it. May darkness and deep shadow claim it once more; may a cloud settle over it; may blackness overwhelm its light. That night—may thick darkness seize it; may it not be included among the days of the year nor be entered in any of the months. May that night be barren; may no shout of joy be heard in it. May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan. May its morning stars become dark; may it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn, for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes. "Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest… Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? For sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil." - Job 3:1-13, 23-26
Apostle Paul
"At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.”
- 2 Tim 4:16, Rom 8:36, Phi 1:21, 1 Co 4:9,13, 2 Cor 11:23-29