Friday, June 21, 2024 | Trey Comstock
As parents, we like to make things easier for our kids. We are tempted to remove any obstacles they may have in their way. There’s even a term for this. It’s called “lawnmower parenting” where you “mow over” any hardship before your kids get to it. If your toddler is having trouble climbing the stairs, you carry them. If they’re struggling in school, you talk to the teacher to change the grade instead of making them study harder. If they get too much bench time on their baseball team, you talk to the coach about it instead of helping them practice and become a better player to earn more play time. It can be hard for us to watch our kids struggle. But hardship and struggle are, unfortunately, part of the human experience. Life will not always be carefree and easy.
Though if you look at advertisements, you’ll see a different story altogether. TV and social media ads paint a picture of life without struggle. Don’t want to cook dinner? Go out to eat or order in. You don’t even have to leave your house. Doordash will bring dinner to you! Don’t want to go grocery shopping with your toddlers in tow? Order ahead and they’ll bring them directly to your car or have them delivered to you. From robot vacuums that also mop and miracle cleaners to tech gadgets and apps that promise to make your life free and easy, there is an entire array of conveniences at our fingertips claiming to be the answer to what ails you. We don’t like the struggle. We don’t enjoy doing hard things. And yet sometimes, the hard things that we accomplish can give us the greatest sense of joy in life. Imagine the first time your kid gets a good grade after studying hard or scores a run on their team after practicing. There is a great sense of accomplishment that comes from leaning in to the struggle.
Also, it would be quite ridiculous if your child started school and were still unable to climb the stairs because they had never tried and always been carried. Someday, your child will meet a teacher, or coach, or a boss that will not give them their way just to make life easier on them. Sometimes, life can just be hard. Learning to live and thrive in the midst of struggle is an important skill set. Learning to do hard things, even when we don’t want to, is an important skill set! Endurance and patience come from that time spent doing hard work.
The Corinthians were going through a tough time. They were being persecuted and slandered. Paul in today’s letter to the Corinthians gives a very detailed outline of the struggles they have seen.
They’ve endured afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger… This part of the passage reads like a response to the Corinthians’ singing that old song “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows my sorrow.”
But they do. They know the struggle. They know the sorrow. They know the trouble that the Corinthians have endured. And yet this response is one encouraging hope and continued endurance in the midst of strife. Paul calls them “weapons of righteousness in their right and left hands”... purity, knowledge patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God;
We have the tools to use to endure hard times. And it’s not an app or a gadget or a delivery service. It’s these fruits of the Spirit. It’s the POWER of God that helps us to endure when life isn’t fair.
There’s a version of Christianity being proclaimed that once you accept Christ into your life as your Lord and Savior that everything will be carefree and easy from that point forward. But it’s simply not true. It certainly wasn’t true for the Corinthians and it isn’t true for us today. Life is still hard. Struggle and pain will still come our way. BUT, the difference is we now have the power of the Holy Spirit on our side. We now have tools at our disposal to help meet those challenges that we didn’t have before. We no longer have to meet those struggles alone.
So while we may still sometimes feel like singing “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” we can take heart that in fact, God knows and sees our sorrows. And yet, God can turn that mourning into dancing, that sorrow into joy, if we will only ENDURE.