Matthew 4:5-6
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, 6 and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say,
‘He will order his angels to protect you.
And they will hold you up with their hands
so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’[c]”
In The Matrix, Neo suddenly realises his identity and the immense power he possesses. This newfound strength renders him invincible, as bullets fall before him, punches are effortlessly dodged, and fights become almost boring and mundane. There is a myth that is easily believed that this is what faith will do to our lives. We will waltz on the waters of life, living with such flair that nothing can touch us. However, this is a fantasy. Jesus explicitly states that we should anticipate trouble, suffering, and even persecution. The path of Jesus is not devoid of pain but full of hope.
In our lowest moments, the challenge of the devil is still the same: “If you are the Son of God…” Sometimes people articulate this a little differently: If God is real, he would have saved my mother. If God loved me, why did he let that person hurt me? The temptation for Jesus was not to jump off the building and see if he would be caught. The real temptation was to tie his identity and relationship with God to his experience of pain. If he jumped, he would have been caught because the devil spoke words of truth. However, his relationship with God would have become one based on merit and circumstance. If he had jumped, his connection to God would have never been the same.
Not everything that you pray for will be answered as you want it to. God may lead you to success or he may lead you to obscurity. He may protect you from one attack and allow another to connect. Jesus did not understand his identity through the context of his experiences, he understood his experiences through the context of his sonship. Never divorce your suffering from the context of your identity as a son or daughter of God.
