Many people (me included) believed that when we accepted Christ as our Savior and live in Him that life should be easy. No troubles, nothing difficult. Always good and easy. And when hard or challenging times come we call out to God in prayer to fix it while we also can get frustrated or demoralized. However, God has called us to see challenges and difficulties as blessings and to be joyful in them (see here). But more than that, God sent His one and only Son to be a living example of this way of living.

Jesus was mocked by other people in his communities. Nobody likes to feel mocked or made fun of. Nobody likes to be picked on or bullied. Yet, there are multiple examples of this happening to Jesus and His response was to love. Read examples in the Book of Matthew (click here), when Jesus said He was going to do something and people laughed at Him. Or later in Matthew when Jesus was in chains and in the process of His earthly punishment (click here).

Jesus' friends didn't want to be associated with Him at times. How does it make you feel when your friends abandon you or you feel they don't support what you're doing? Not very good usually. Yet, Jesus faced this too (click here). When the authorities came to arrest Jesus, His friends all left Him and fled.

Jesus went hungry (click here). I don't know about you but when I go without food for a period of time and get hungry, I can get upset and crabby. I don't look at it as a blessing to go hungry. I look at it as an inconvenience. But Jesus was hungry, tempted by Satan, and STILL didn't let His hunger define Him. He focused on the strength of spiritual life more than physical life.

Here are three examples of how Jesus handled very difficult and challenging times in His earthly life. It is encouragement and instruction to us on how we too should live. God bless.