Fulfilling the mission to the fullest

Mark 15:23  "Then they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it."

Immediately before being crucified, Jesus was offered wine mixed with myrrh (or, as stated in other Gospels, gall).  I have always assumed this mixture was another form of mocking or torture by the guards who had been beating and flogging Him.  It turns out that the mixture was actually a mild form of anesthesia, and was offered to those about to be crucified in order to dull the pain.

He refused this.  It strikes me that although He was already enduring great pain and torture, He didn't want anything to cloud or dull the experience.  Nothing about His situation or what He was doing for mankind would have changed had he taken the mixture offered to Him.  He was still to be crucified and He was still to fulfill the prophecy of being the perfect sacrifice for the world's sin.  He could have eased His final hours ever so slightly and not avoided the mission He came to earth to fulfill. 

He chose not only to fulfill the mission, but to do it to the fullest.  This was His Father's will, and Jesus wanted nothing more than to fulfill it to the fullest.  May we all remember this when we face trials.  Instead of focusing on the end of the trial and getting through it as painlessly as possible, maybe the appropriate question to ask ourselves is "How else can I fully experience what God has for me so that I may grow as He wants me to and His will may be done?"