What do suffering from persecution and suffering from sickness have in common?

In choosing to follow Christ in the way he directs, we choose all that this path includes under his sovereign providence. Thus all suffering that comes in the path of obedience is suffering with Christ and for Christ—whether it is cancer or conflict. And it is ‘chosen’—that is, we willingly take the path of obedience where the suffering befalls us, and we do not murmur against God. We may pray—as Paul did—that the suffering be removed (2 Corinthians 12:8); but if God wills, we embrace it in the end, as part of the cost of discipleship in the path of obedience on the way to heaven.
        —John Piper, Desiring God, 1996 Expanded Edition, p. 216