As a teacher, I sometimes encounter students who come against something difficult for them to complete, and their reaction is oftentimes anguished frustration.
As a Christian, I encounter my own string of difficulties that can equally frustrate me, making me grouchy to say the least.
But as someone who pursues God, I imagine he prefers to give us the hard tasks, because it is through hard obedience that we grow the most in our walk with him.
I love words, so when I think about the idea of something being hard, I counter it with the opposite. Soft? Easy? I imagine soft, easy obedience is doing something that feels comfortable, therefore making it pleasant for us. But much like a pearl that is formed only through an irritant, I imagine my own life can only become beautiful in God’s eyes if I am irritated by the sin that so easily entangles.
Philippians 2: 5-11 says that we should try to have the same attitude as Christ who didn’t try to get to the top of the ladder and sit equally with God. Instead, he willingly left the plush life of heaven and stepped into the harsh confines of a human body, and then even went to the cross for a death more horrific than we can imagine. But through his death, his hard obedience, came something extraordinarily beautiful.
I don’t know about you, but I think I may have had a bad attitude through the whole dying on a cross ordeal. But Jesus didn’t. And God’s word says that we need to emulate Christ; so when life asks us to do the hard things in obedience to what God has designed for our lives, we should not only do them, but do them with a gracious attitude.
Then we shall behold the priceless beauty of a pearl emerging because we chose to fight against the irritant with hard obedience and a joyful heart.
