wanting to be first

Trying to understand God's plan for our lives is easy , the difficult part is to accept it ! The bible in the book of Hebrews presents a group of people that we call the " faith heroes " if we had called them that name when they were alive , probably they would had refused to called that because many of them , were just " ordinary " human beings  who served an extra ordinary God . At the end of that Chapter , we read about " the others " these are the people who did not received deliverance . The author of Hebrews says" Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection." Did these " others " refuse to be released " or God refuse to release them . By Nature , every human being wants to avoid suffering and pain  so what happened ? I believe God refuse to release them , but they die with hope knowing that we serve an extra ordinary God  who allowed his Son to go  through suffering and pain to save the human race and  after He shown that he was not in this to be first , now he is exalted at the right hand of God . So what are we in this for ?  I guess sooner or later we will have to answer to God and to others , the reason why we are in this walk . Are we in this because we want to be first and we are " trained " so that lay people can admire us and sees us as something else . Or are we in this thing called ministry because we love God and people that we can not do otherwise ? I pray it is because we love them as Jesus loves us .