1) Jesus promised joy and persecution.
It's easy to meditate on all positive promises and forget all the other promises like, the world will hate you. As Christian's we need to prepare for, and discipline ourselves not because we might be persecuted but because we are commanded to anyways. All Gods promises are completely true in the midst of hardship. I want to know this not in doctrine only but in experience. I want to be in a place of hardship and experience all his promises! Whose with me.
@Justinmartyr you seem to have chosen the right username, Justin the Martyr. I'd rather stick to my "Pilgrim", though although I see the truth in your words, I don't know how one could earnestly seek persecution. Something promised is not necessarily something that also needs to be desired.
Yet, if I pray that God would bring everything into my life that draws me to Him and away from this rotten world, we're not really praying much different, are we?
So, in this sense: I'm with you, brother!
@erdenpilger another way to put it is, when I have experienced hardship, it is not enjoyable, but what God has taught me through it is something I never regreted learning.