You Can Do Hard Things... It's supposed to be hard

"We can do hard things."

I've been giving this quote some serious thought lately.  This quote is at once empowering and terrifying.  As I was pondering this quote and my reaction to it, I remembered a series of commercials for a certain office supply store that were centered around people in difficult situations simply hitting the "easy" button to solve the problem.

And doesn't  that longing for an "easy" button sum up parts of our current culture?  If there's an illness or disease-- we want a pill or medicine that will quickly take care of the problem.  The fact that there are many illness out there where this isn't the case (like Ebola) make us uneasy, fearful, and vulnerable. We long to win the lottery to solve all our financial problems.  We want our food fast and easy.  We want a raise at work without doing any more work.  We want our children to quickly come up with an answer instead of critically think about what the best solution would be. We want to lose weight now by taking a pill instead of actually doing the work to sweat it off.  I would say that our quest to make life "easy" is probably one of the driving forces in todays world.  And, I'm not knocking that quest entirely, because I just absolutely adore inventions and discoveries like electricity, gas heat, and google -- for they all make my life easier-- and I enjoy greatly their benefits.

However, the problem is that in our quest and desire for easy, we find ourselves shaken when things in life come along and remind us that life, in general, is not always easy.  In fact, often when we come up against the hard stuff, we become paralyzed because we don't think we can do hard.  We find ourselves discouraged.  It sometimes shakes the very foundations of our deepest held beliefs.  Sometimes we lash out in anger, believing that someone  has let us down (often that someone we blame is God).  We look for places to lay blame for this seemingly insurmountable wall that has suddenly arisen in our life.  We pace at the bottom of the wall, cursing (or at least grumbling) about this wall and it's placement-- unwilling or unable to search for harder solutions because we mistakenly believed that everything should be easy.

Well guess what?  I'm hear to tell you that there are times when it's not easy.  That life doesn't always revolve around easy solutions.  Life is not a flat, straight, perfectly smooth road.  It's bumpy.  It is full of potholes that jar your teeth every time you run over them.  There are times when the pavement ends and the way forward is on a steep, rocky, painful,  hard to conquer pathway.

Now I reach the point where you think I should tell you that this is where faith and belief in God comes in and takes care of all the hard things.  That it magically sweeps away all the hard in life and replaces it with nothing but a soft, fantastic, long-lasting summer of easy.  Hah!  I'm sorry, but that's just not true either.

"I thought faith would say, I'll take away the pain and discomfort, but what it ended up saying was, I'll sit with you in it."  Brene Brown

"Faith minus vulnerability and mystery is extremism.  Don't call it faith if there's no uncertainty.  If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do faith."  Brene Brown

I sometimes think that maybe we mis-sell the truth about faith in God.  Or, maybe not mis-sell, but instead over-sell one aspect and sweep the rest of the stuff under the rug.  I can tell you now that if you  come to faith in God looking for God to be your "easy" button for life-- removing all the hard stuff--you are going to be disappointed and disillusioned.  

Don't get me wrong, there are times when God does step in and take care of the "hard" stuff.  But not every time.  And I'm not hear to discuss the whys and why nots around when and how God makes the decisions around making hard stuff easy versus walking with you through hard stuff.  Truth be known, it is often a mystery to me, this whole question of why and why not.  I simply do not know.  Sometimes, I may harbor a secret guess as to the why or why not, but I do not always know with certainty.

Instead, here is what I do know.  I do know that my faith journey requires me to openly be vulnerable. To openly admit that I don't have all the answers.  To release pride and embrace humility.   To trust God with all the parts that feel vulnerable-- easily hurt--to trust that He will work all things together for my good.  Sometimes it feels like I am blindfolded, and I am desperately holding His hand, trusting him to safely guide me through the maze of life without letting me hit a wall.  And that level of trust, at least for me, is one of the hard things in life.

But here's the other piece of news.  You can do hard things.  Really, you can.  And often, the reward for doing those "hard things" is greater, sweeter, more fulfilling than if you had simply hit the "easy" button.  Hmmmmm... do you think that God knows this about us?  Do you think He understands that part of the deep value of the human experience is encased in this work of doing hard things?    He created us, knows everything about us.  You bet He knows this.  

It is often the "hard things" that teach us the greatest lessons.  And, even though I know that to be true intellectually,  emotionally my first instinct is to run away from the hard and look for the easy button.   To stand at the bottom of the wall, grumbling, instead of doing the hard work of climbing over the wall, so that I can learn the useful skill of climbing, so that next time I can move on faster.  

Finally, what I want you to understand about faith in God is this,  that even though you may be in the middle of a hard moment, God is there with you.    He is sitting by your side, quietly whispering, "You can do it.  You can do hard things.  I'm with you.  I'm here.  Trust me."

I'll leave you with one photo today from the walled city of Dubrovnik, Croatia.   These walls have withstood many "hard" moments.  They have endured invasion and earthquakes, the rise and fall of many leaders.