The Gospel is Worth Our Cheerful Endurance

Go find your hairbrush. Go on...I'll wait. Draw from it a single one of your hairs. Now, take that hair and tape it to the front cover of your Bible study journal. It will be an icon for you, both of what is about to happen in your life story, and the outcome of your story. That single hair will also remind you of how to deal with what is about to happen.

In short - it will be more than difficult, but you will be more than just okay.

If you stand firm on the gospel of Christ Alone, here is what will happen to you:

You will be betrayed. (meaning: someone who you thought was with you, will leave you. Usually they will betray you "with a kiss" - saying with their lips that they love you, and still want to be your friend...or your family.)

Betrayal does not come by the kiss of just anyone, otherwise it wouldn't matter. No, betrayal comes by the kiss of a dear one, always.

But listen to me. It is a loss at first, but in the end, you will not have lost so much as a hair from off the top of your beautiful head. This is experience speaking! I have found the words of Jesus to be dramatically true.

Expect to be betrayed and lose those ones, yet expect to lose nothing. The Christian life is full of paradox. Bear it all with cheerful patience. Patience is no patience at all if it is not cheerful. Otherwise, it is just fleshly stoicism...an unattractive martyrdom.

You are not going to suffer the loss of so much as a hair from your head, see. That is yours and God's little secret. So let them kiss you and walk away. The gospel is worth your cheerful endurance, and it is through this cheerfulness that you possess an untroubled soul.

I taped a single hair of mine to the front cover of my Bible study journal just now. It is for me an icon of the fact that I am living a dream I do not deserve. In spite of weathering the worst, I am receiving the best.

If God is fully committed to the preservation of that hair from my head, how much more will he preserve and protect my heart...my reputation...my relationships and my resources? I've been betrayed, and I have lost, but as I look at the bottom line of my balance sheet, there is more in the bank than ever before, so to speak.

Each time I open that journal, and break open the word of God, I will see...a seemingly unimportant part of me that God has committed Himself to keep count of, and to protect...a single hair of a woman with an untroubled soul, a soul breathing deeply of the atmosphere of eternity, where all is undisturbed Shalom.


"You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls."