Why Hard Things?
Why do so many of us embrace extreme difficulty? 28,853 runners showed up at the starting line for the Boston Marathon this year. Over 12,000 climbers have reached the summit of Mt. Everest. My son competed with over 1,700 other cyclists in a 100-mile Mountain Bike Race in the Colorado Rockies.
This past weekend, our very own pastor, Ethan Bicker, competed with nearly 2,000 other like-minded athletes in the Michigan Ironman event. An exhausting combination of swimming, cycling, and running. He has been training for it all Summer. Very few of us could do this.
These challenges are costly and time-consuming. They involve the risk of injury and intentional discomfort. Why do we do this stuff? Why do we challenge ourselves to do difficult things?
On a typical university campus, there are hundreds of “post-docs.” These are the men and women who have spent 8 to 10 years studying a specific subject to earn their doctorate. Then they go on to continue their studies, do research, and teach. The pay is miserable. What is their motivation to spend their lives working so hard for so little?
There are many more examples of this human trait. Go to Mars, lose 50 pounds, stay married, hike the Appalachian Trail, care for the sick, visit the prisoners, and preach the Gospel, all come to mind.
God must be this way. We are this way, and we are made in His image. His creation and the subsequent re-creation of it have all the earmarks of an Ironman event. Supremely challenging, discomforting, takes an inordinate amount of time and patience. And finishing well requires sacrifice.
In this world, we also have plenty of examples where a difficult challenge is not on the menu of life. People who have given up or given in. They are broken; they have lost their curiosity in creation. They have little hope for a meaningful life. So many don’t know God, much less trust Him. They are the extreme and discomforting challenge for the Mother Theresa in all of us. They are the “least of these.”
Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ (Matt. 25:45 ESV)
Those who engage in a great challenge must be disciplined and confident. In success and even in failure, they increase their discipline and confidence. Perhaps this increase is what is actually sought and necessary to succeed in the more mundane assignments from God.
Our heavenly Father is interested in the development of our character. When a hard thing comes along in life, chosen or not, God provides the increase in faith, understanding, compassion, discipline, and confidence that He wants for us. We can trust Him to develop exactly what we need to progress on our path to become more like Jesus.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:1-5 ESV)
This would suggest that if your life’s goals seem a bit out of reach due to a shortage of discipline or confidence, you can make progress by challenging yourself with one difficult thing that you can do.
The best choices are those areas in your life that God has been talking to you about changing. He loves you and will help you become the best version of yourself. The version that resembles Jesus.
