Why Is Christianity So Hard? (The Answer You Actually Need)

Joseph was seventeen years old when his brothers stripped his coat off him and dropped him into a dry cistern.

He didn't do anything to deserve it. He was the favored son, yes. He had said things that annoyed his brothers, yes. But nothing in the story explains what happened next as proportionate justice. His brothers sat down to eat while the boy was in the hole. They sold him for twenty pieces of silver.

Then it got worse.

He was taken to Egypt. He did everything right in Potiphar's house — so well that Potiphar trusted him with everything. Then Potiphar's wife lied about him and he went to prison.

He did everything right in prison — so well that the chief jailer put him in charge of everything. Then the cupbearer forgot him for two full years.

Thirteen years. From the pit to the palace — thirteen years of doing right things inside wrong circumstances that God apparently was not in any hurry to correct.

If you want to understand why Christianity is hard, start there. Not with a theology textbook. With Joseph in the pit.

The Version They Sold You

Somewhere along the way, a version of the gospel got circulated that promised a better life in exchange for belief.

Better marriage. Better finances. Better mental health. Better outcomes generally. The name-it-and-claim-it crowd made it explicit. But even in churches that would never say it that plainly, the implication was there. Follow Jesus and things will go better for you.

That is not what Jesus said.

"In the world ye shall have tribulation." — John 16:33

He said it plainly. Not tribulation as a possibility. Not tribulation as an exception for people who don't have enough faith. Tribulation in the world. Full stop. And then immediately: "but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

The comfort is not the removal of the tribulation. The comfort is the One who is with you inside it.

This is the hardest thing about following Christ. It doesn't make your life easier. It makes your life more meaningful, which is not the same thing and sometimes feels like the opposite.

God Is Not Punishing You. He Is Cutting.

I wrote once about the difference between judgment and pruning and I've never stopped thinking about it.

"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." — John 15:2

The King James word purgeth is the Greek kathairo — to cleanse, to prune. A vinedresser does not prune a dying branch. He prunes the one that is bearing fruit, because he wants more fruit. The knife goes to the productive branches.

If you are in a season where God feels like a surgeon who keeps making cuts, there is a possibility you have not considered: He may be pruning you precisely because you are bearing fruit. Because He wants more.

The branch does not understand what the knife is doing. It only feels the blade.

Joseph did not know, at the bottom of the cistern, what God was building in him. He did not know, in Potiphar's house, that the management skills he was developing over another man's inventory would one day be applied to a nation's food supply during seven years of famine. He did not know that every betrayal, every false accusation, every delayed rescue was shaping the man who would stand before Pharaoh and save more lives than he could count.

He only knew that God was with him. The text says it four times. The LORD was with Joseph. The LORD was with Joseph. The LORD was with Joseph. The LORD was with Joseph.

Not that it felt like it. That it was true.

Why the Road Is Narrow

"Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." — Matthew 7:14

The word strait is not a typo for straight. It means narrow, constricted, tight. This is a path that does not accommodate everything you want to carry.

Christianity is hard because genuine following of Christ requires you to put down things that feel essential. The sin you've kept for eleven years and called it a coping mechanism. The habit that blunts the edge of every real spiritual encounter. The comfort that keeps you just warm enough to not notice you're slowly freezing.

Most people who say Christianity is too hard have not yet been asked to lay down the specific thing. They've been asked to agree to a set of beliefs and show up on Sundays. That is not Christianity. That is religion. And religion is not particularly hard.

The actual walk is hard because it is a cross. And a cross is not a metaphor.

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." — Luke 9:23

Daily. Not once at an altar. Not in a conversion moment that covers everything afterward. Every day, the same decision. To follow instead of lead yourself. To lay down instead of accumulate. To be pruned instead of preserved.

What the Hard Season Is Building

Here is what I know about Joseph at forty.

He stood in front of the brothers who sold him and he did not destroy them. He wept. He forgave. He provided for them and their families out of the same storehouses that God had given him authority over.

That kind of man is not produced in comfort.

The patience, the perspective, the freedom from bitterness — none of that comes from a charmed life. It comes from thirteen years of doing right things inside wrong circumstances and refusing to let either one change who you are at the bottom.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." — Romans 8:28

Not that all things feel good. Not that all things are good in themselves. That they work together — that in the hands of God, the betrayal and the false accusation and the forgotten promise and the delayed rescue are all being woven into something you cannot yet see the shape of.

Christianity is hard because God is not building your comfort. He is building your character. And character is only ever built under weight.

Joseph knew this, eventually. At the end of the story, when his brothers were afraid of what he might do, he gave them the answer that could only have come from a man who had been in the pit and survived it:

"But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good." — Genesis 50:20

The hardest thing in your life right now is not outside God's purposes. It is inside them. That is why Christianity is hard.

And it is the only answer that actually holds up.