Haste

"Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"--Matthew 4.8-10
This has always been an interesting temptation to me. The devil tempts Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world, which, by right of Jesus being the second person of the Holy Trinity, God in the flesh, belonged to him anyway. So, what was the temptation?
By coming to earth in the flesh, the Son of God (Jesus) had chosen to put aside his glory for a time. He had freely chosen to humble himself by being carried in a woman's womb, be born of a poor family, and live in a backwards corner of the world, dominated by a foreign power. He chose to walk dusty roads, to suffer through daily trying to teach 12 slow pupils. Jesus chose to reach out to dirty lepers, notorious sinner prostitutes, corrupt tax collectors, and even one he knew would betray him. Finally, he chose to endure a terribly degrading and excruciatingly painful torture at the hands of false religious leaders and the Crucifixion on a cross. So, when the devil tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the earth, the temptation was not for the kingdoms themselves (they would eventually belong to him anyway). The temptation was to have them NOW, without having to go through all the trials that culminated in taking the sins of the world on himself on the cross.
A wise Christian writer once said, "Haste is ever the sin of Adam." In other words, one of our biggest temptation as humans to try to have the glory without the cost (the crown without the cross). We want to avoid pain at all costs.
The strange thing about the human experience, though, is that there are some lessons we can only learn through life's hard crucible Some lessons we can only learn in the dark valleys. The sunny mountain top is where we all want to be, but it seems that the place we grow the most is on the hard climb.
Are you going through something today? Know that Christ walks with you! And that through it, you have the opportunity to depend on Jesus in a way you never have before.