Achieved without great effort, presenting few difficulties is a definition of the word easy. I believe we live in a world where many of us expect all things to be easy but life is not easy then we die. In this day of “if it feels good do it” we can live with that easy attitude but eventually the challenges of life will catch up with our efforts to avoid challenges. As the song says, “I never promised you a rose garden”. Yet, I believe many attempt to bypass the harder things in life by adopting a false belief. Some of the influences I believe is media driven. We hear, we see then we emulate what we perceive as reality. Whether what we believe is founded on sound principles or not, it becomes our truth that we easily accept as fact. Take taxes for example. I hate paying taxes but understand we should all pay our fair share. But my assumption is flawed because I believed everyone pays taxes. It never occurred to me before my mid 30’s that there are people who live off the hard work of others and never pay taxes because they never earn a wage. Not all are capable of earning a wage if they are mentally or physically challenged but I suspect that is a relatively small number. Others take the easy way out of paying taxes by not working. Simple strategy right? Maybe, but I believe eventually that attitude will lead to failure in life.
In Philippians 2:5, we are encouraged to “Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus. Though he was in the form of God….he emptied himself by taking the form of a salve and by becoming like human beings.” He did not take the easy way out. We are encouraged to be more Christ like which in itself means that we work in the mission fields not expected to be easy. Many of us go to Church and that is it. We think we have done our part. In my opinion, we gather together to worship and charge up our batteries for the next mission outside the walls of a building we call Church. We see temples, chief priests and elders teaching us by some authority but in Matthew 21:23 Jesus challenged them by saying “Who gave you this authority?”
I encourage you to continue reading then pray for directions to the next mission field expecting the mission not to be easy but go anyway because that is the right thing to do.
T