Luke 8:38-39; 1 Peter 4:12

Luke 8
38 Now the man from whom the demons had departed begged Him that he might be with Him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.” And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.

We can feel sorry for this man that Jesus cleansed, even after Jesus had delivered him from torment and given him his life back. After that, the only thing he desired, to the point of begging, was that he did not want to leave Jesus's presence. But Jesus said, "No, not now, there is work I want you to do first." So he would now have to go back and face all the people who were previously terrified of him, try to reassemble some kind of life, while spreading the Gospel about Jesus. Everyone would have remembered who he was, as he must have been a monster. You can only imagine what atrocities he would have committed while being posessed by all of those demons. At some point the society decided that they didn't even want him in their prison. Now he comes back to this town to talk to them about religion?

We as Christians have an idea of how this man must have felt. When we are delivered from the sin that toments us, we feel like we just want to stay in His presence and live happily ever after. He tells us that we too must go back to our lives and spread the word about the Gospel. We also face our former lives, those that we may have treated harshly or those who witnessed us practicing things or acting in ways that are no longer who we are. Like Legion's townfolk, these people who are the most hardened against us (and maybe rightfully so) are the ones we are told to witness to.

I think the tendency is to read this story from the Bible and think that there were only happy times from then on for the formerly demon-posessed man and to think the same thing for other people who come to know Jesus. But I think it helps us to remember that while "being saved" represents the end of a lot of undesirable and negative things, it is also beginning of something else, which often involves much difficulty. We should not be surprised to find that we are not living happily ever after after we know Jesus or think something is wrong with us if we are not.

1 Peter 4
12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;