"Doing life together" with Jesus

Last week, I saw a word in the following verse from the Bible in Philippians that I'd never paid attention to.

Philippians 3:10
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

The word I had missed is "fellowship".

In human relationships we know that we can have fun with people, hang out, "network", fit in, look cool in the clique without ever going below the surface. But, we also know that deeper, more lasting relationships are formed when we go through the hards times of life together.

It's the same with Jesus. We can draw on his power, his grace, the good things, the cool things, the fun things, but if we really want to go deep in our relationship with him we must go to the place of sharing with him in his sufferings. Not that he needs our comforting or counseling like a human friend does. But since he is a friend, we can have fellowship with him - that is, we can deepen our relationship with him - by attempting to understand the agony of the cross, by empathizing with his pain, by accepting his sacrifice so that all of that suffering he went through will not be wasted, and by sacrificing ourselves, our will, our desires, our comfort as he did.

Going through the deep stuff with him (his cross and my comparatively minimal trials) can make me closer to him.

Don't live just "on the surface" with people; and don't live just "on the surface" with Jesus.