Using Scripture as a road map, only the narrow gate points toward home. And Messiah Yeshua says in Luke 13:24 we must strive to enter it. The Greek word for strive means to struggle, compete for a prize or labor fervently. The Lord even cautions potential converts to sit down and weigh the cost before entering the gate, which is Messiah Himself (John 10:9).
Why the struggle? What makes this road so difficult? Is it because of tribulation and persecution, which the Lord says will afflict all believers? And what kind of tribulation is He speaking of – physical, mental, spiritual?
Certainly, it can be any or all of the above. In Luke 14:33, Yeshua tells us that the narrow way requires sacrifice – "Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple." What is the Lord asking us to forsake? The context suggests He is speaking of our closest relationships. If our loved ones – father, mother, wife, children, brother, sister – reject Messiah or our walk with Him, we face a difficult choice: avoid rocking the boat, or getting out of the boat and following the Lord. That is why He asks us to weigh the cost. Do we have the strength or will to finish the race by ourselves if necessary?
God wired us to seek and enjoy the fellowship of like-minded believers. We should seek fellowship but not at the expense of compromise. To those navigating the lonely, narrow road, perhaps this devotional by A.W. Tozer will strike a chord:
The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone. The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way.The man (or woman) who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.
It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else.