BIRTHPLACE OF GLORY
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:17-18; NLT; emphasis mine)
Paul makes a startling claim here, and one that sits at the very heart of spiritual formation. He writes that if we are God’s children, then we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ,” but only if we share in His sufferings so that we may also share in His glory. This is not a threat; it is an invitation into the very process by which Christ’s nature is formed within us.
The word Paul uses for “suffer with” is sympaschomen, meaning to participate in another’s suffering, to share in it by union. Paul is not speaking here of random hardship, trauma, or the general wounds inflicted by human malice, although God sovereignly redeems those things to shape us (Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20).
Instead, the Greek word sympaschomen refers to a very specific kind of pressure: the unique cost that comes from our explicit union with Christ, our obedience to Him, and our being targeted by the world because of Him. While God can use any generic life hardship for our development, this shared suffering with Jesus is the unique catalyst that transforms us into His likeness. The Holy Spirit uses two primary methods to do this refining work.
The first method is the cost of obedience, which is the inward ache we feel when the Holy Spirit leads us where our human flesh does not want to go. This is our personal Gethsemane moment—the painful process of surrendering and saying, “Not my will, but Yours” (Luke 22:42). It is the Father’s deliberate pruning, the death of our personal ambition, and the letting go of earthly things that cannot enter eternity. Remarkably, Scripture notes that even Jesus “learned obedience through what He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).
The second method is the cost of identification, which is the external price we pay for holding citizenship in a different Kingdom. Jesus guaranteed this reality when He warned, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). This horizontal pressure manifests as misunderstandings, relational rejection, isolation, and the hidden losses that naturally accompany a life set apart for God.
Both forms of hardship are not punitive, but participatory. God is not punishing us; rather, He is inviting us to participate in the fellowship of Christ’s life. These pressures are the exact tools the Holy Spirit uses to break down our old habits and build the very nature of Christ within us.
Sharing in Christ’s sufferings is not an accident of the spiritual life. It is the pathway into spiritual inheritance. It is the womb in which glory is formed.
And what is this glory? Paul uses the word doxa, meaning weight, radiance, splendor, the visible expression of God’s nature. This glory is not only future; it is unfolding within us even now as Christ’s nature is gradually revealed until His life reaches full maturity in us, the beautiful completion of the Spirit’s hidden work.
THE FISHING BOBBER PRINCIPLE
I am well acquainted with many kinds of suffering. For decades, I carried emotional wounds, wrestled through mental battles, endured physical pain, suffered mistreatment, and felt the sharp sting of social rejection. And yet, as soon as I would recover from the blows and could think clearly again, something deep inside would urge me to get up and keep going.
For years, I called it the “fishing bobber principle.” It is the strange, inner buoyancy that kept pushing me back up to the surface, no matter how many times life tried to hold me under. And this resilience is not unique to me. It is the active inheritance of every true believer. Paul describes it this way:
This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. (2 Corinthians 4:7–10; NLT; emphasis mine)
I cannot count how many times I have been knocked down, pushed aside, or held beneath the suffocating waters of discouragement. And I cannot tell you why I never gave up, except to say that I couldn’t. There is a living Person residing inside of me who flatly refuses to let me stay down. He keeps lifting, strengthening, and urging, whispering: “Get up. Keep going. We are not finished yet!”
The shared sufferings of Christ are never endured by raw human grit, but by the resurrected life actively rising within us.
The Life that conquered death can never be conquered by modern discouragement. The Life that rose from the grave cannot be permanently buried by temporary adversity. Many hardships and perplexing circumstances confront the righteous, “but the Lord rescues him from them all” (Psalm 34:19).
Christ’s indwelling life is like that little fishing bobber. Even when pulled under, sometimes violently, it rises again. Its strength isn’t in its own effort, but in the air-filled design that makes resurfacing inevitable. So it is with us. We rise not by human adequacy, but because His breath and resurrection life dwell within us. It is His Spirit in us that returns us back to the surface. This is what the Apostle Paul prayed that we would understand:
I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 1:19–20; NLT; emphasis mine)
This is the lesson adversity teaches us, when life drags us beneath the surface, we do not rise by straining; we rise by absolute surrender. We come to the holy resolve that we are no longer our own. We release the illusion of control, and when we do, the Spirit of God rises within us and leads us forward every time. Paul understood this deeply:
We think you ought to know… about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-10; NLT; emphasis mine)
There were seasons, even years, in my life when I felt like I was failing at sharing my faith. One door slammed after another. Yet, during those low moments, the Spirit faithfully comforted and sustained me. He lifted me when I could not stand, encouraged me forward when I wanted to collapse into self-pity, and silenced the internal voices that told me to quit.
However, the Lord did not just comfort me in my discouragement; He also actively blocked my own efforts. Whenever I tried to force my way forward, He intervened. I kept trying to speak, but He shut my mouth. I wanted to push ahead in ministry, but He held me back. I did not realize it then, but this was a deliberate, sovereign restriction. He was intentionally silencing my spoken voice to force me to find my written one.
After my fourth or fifth book, the Lord brought everything full circle. He said, “If I hadn’t shut your mouth, you wouldn’t have written those books.” Then He said to me, “Write down clearly what I reveal to you, so that it can be easily read” (Habakkuk 2:2).
Suddenly, everything made sense! Every delay, every silence, every rejection, and every closed door was God’s sovereign redirect. The closed doors were not a denial of my calling; they were the scaffolding for my true assignment. Through it all, He was not only reshaping my ministry, but He was continuing to fashion Christ-like tenacity in me.
What once felt like total rejection was really redemptive redirection. It was His gentle way of steering me into His perfect will. It was like a mouse in a maze, learning the right path because the walls closed in on one side and only one opening remained. The narrowing becomes the guidance.
2 Corinthians 5:14 says the love of Christ “constrains” us, meaning to press in on all sides, to hold together, or to hem in for a purposeful design. It functions like a cattle squeeze that narrows the lane so the animal moves safely forward. God was cupping His hands around my life, not to limit me, but to lead me by shaping my steps, protecting my calling, and guiding me into the very plans He wanted me to enjoy.
One of the most pivotal tests of faith we will ever take is found in a single question: Whose approval are you waiting for? Scripture teaches us to walk in genuine humility, to honor spiritual authority, and to remain highly accountable within the body of Christ. These are vital safeguards for the soul and expressions of godly order. Yet there is a fine line the Spirit must help us discern.
Hardships not only become the slow furnace where He refines our motives and purifies our desires, but they also strip away the illusion that we need someone else’s approval or permission to carry out the Lord’s calling.
Accountability is not the same as waiting for human permission to obey God. If we delay our obedience until every person affirms us, we may wait far longer than God ever intended. The flesh craves validation, but the Spirit calls us to follow the Shepherd’s voice. True obedience begins when the fear of disappointing people yields to the desire to please God alone.
We do not serve for applause or recognition, which come and go as quickly as a passing summer shower. We serve because Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, called us. He knows the path ahead and keeps us steady when others misunderstand or disagree with us. His approval is the only foundation strong enough to carry a calling.
I am convinced that no person, organization, or system can stop what God has begun in us (Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 1:6). The only thing that can stop us is us. We get stuck in life when we don’t take care of the things in the heart that hinder our path forward, such as old hurts, offenses, stubbornness, and arrogance!
Everything Paul wrote about sharing in Christ’s sufferings becomes more than theology when it touches the story of our own lives. The costs of obedience and identification are not abstract ideas. They show up in childhood moments, in family dynamics, in the times when choosing Christ costs us something real. I have lived this truth, and one of the earliest places I tasted this cost was in my relationship with my father. What follows is a story I call “Bittersweet,” because it carries both the sorrow of loss and the sweetness of redemption.
BITTERSWEET
One year, as Father’s Day approached, I found myself thinking about my dad, who had passed away the previous January. For fifty years, we maintained an awkward yet cordial relationship.
I remember the day, at age 8, when I returned home from church with my friend Liz (Meaders) Langlinais and her mother. It had been a year or two since my mother passed away, and the Lord had placed this special friend in my life to comfort me. I loved spending Saturday nights at her house because her mother took us to church on Sunday, which was a discipline we did not practice at home. Other times I rode to church with Mrs. Ramona Carmichael and her family.
One particular Sunday, at the First Baptist Church in Lafayette, LA, at the end of his sermon, Perry Sanders gave an altar call for salvation and membership. Back then, we didn’t have a children’s church; we sat respectfully in the sanctuary with the adults. I was only eight years old when I heard God’s call and made that lone journey down to the altar.
When I returned home, I couldn’t wait to tell my dad that I had gotten “saved”. Unfortunately, he did not share my excitement. Without looking up from his Sunday newspaper, he mumbled, “That’s nice”. I was disappointed, but I knew I had made the right decision.
My dad’s disinterest in spiritual things created a lifelong chasm between us. Although he believed in God and eventually acknowledged Jesus as Savior, he never understood my zeal or my quest to learn more about my Creator or to know Him personally. And as painful as it was, I was willing to forgo a close relationship with my earthly father in exchange for one with my heavenly Father. I counted it as the cost of following Christ.
‘If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it…’ (Matthew 10:37-39; NLT)
I had set my heart to find the One who began this work of Salvation in me, and though I encountered much mistreatment, pain, and rejection along the way, the Lord has been faithful and did not leave me bleeding in the road. Rather, He Himself comforted me in my losses and restored joy in times of brokenness.
Years later, after he passed away, my dad came to mind again. This time, the memory carried a sweetness I had never known. I had this comforting thought: “At least now he knows the truth about Jesus. Now he knows firsthand what and Whom I was talking about all those years.” Oh, what a glorious day it will be when I embrace him again and we finally see eye to eye!
I discovered that glory is never born out of human validation. The true birthplace of glory is revealed within us when we rest in the approval of our heavenly Father. Where earthly relationships fall short, He meets us with a healing fullness. We can be freed from the need to chase human acceptance because we are already cherished by the One who made us—a Father whose goodness continually overflows in our lives.
Suffering with Christ not only shapes us; it reveals the places in us that have grown hard or closed over time. Scripture tells us to “break up the fallow ground,” but this command is not a call to self‑healing. It is an invitation to openness, to honesty, to letting God into every part of our lives. We turn the soil; He sends the rain. We open the heart; He restores its tenderness. And so the journey naturally moves from sharing in Christ’s sufferings to allowing the Lord to carefully plow the crusty places within us, leading us into raw intimacy and preparing the heart for new life to grow.