It makes sense to me for great advances to be met with great opposition, for heroic action to be met by trouble and even pain. Paying a price to stand up for Jesus, at least in abstraction, is a glorious ideal.

This was a thread of one of the most memorable messages I have ever heard. It was at a college chapel when Dewey Bertolini, the professor for my Christian life and service class, wove a tale of pathos and suffering and utter devotion, telling the story of people who paid dearly to identify with Jesus. Against this grim backdrop he challenged us:
  
“Jesus stood in my place and took the shots that were meant for me. Now it’s my chance to stand in His place and take the shots that are meant for Him.”

Yesterday at lunch one of the boys popped off with an unexpected question—such a habit at our house that I should expect it by now.

“Is my body still in its prime,” he asked, “or is it starting to shut down?”

                                                       Spring is a season for battle.

But when I look out at the verdant lawn, soft as velvet, plush as a shag rug, it’s hard to believe it. When the weather softens and the butter melts in the sun and I can go outside in a T-shirt, it’s difficult to think about warfare. When the little birds sing in the trees and the magnolia wears perfume and the taste of summer peaches is promised on the trees, struggle seems far away, irrelevant to the rejoicing bounty of new life. 

Winter is the time for battle, I’d assert.