The Easy Way

Two things I enjoy reading: Desiring God (a daily devotional app by John Piper) and The Art of Manliness (specifically his Sunday Firesides). Today, they worked together to get my thoughts moving.

There is no easy way with life. If you take things like fast food, a hanging curveball, or pornography, things can be easy. But life itself is not easy. “There must be a way to make good money, without working hard; to lose weight, without cutting calories; to drink caffeine throughout the day, and still get a good nights sleep; to get ripped, without lifting heavy weights.” 

We know this, but don’t want to believe it. If there are these things here-and-there that are quick, easy pleasures, then there must be a solution for making the harder things of life simpler.

Unfortunately, there are some rules to how the universe operates that cannot be undone. Gravity can be overcome, but not without major force. The sun cannot be stopped from setting unless you can travel around the world fast enough to avoid it. Weeds in my yard will continue to grow like the Amazon without tireless work and investment.

In observation of the world around me, and in my own life personally, I believe there are just some things that will take hard work, no matter how much I want to believe otherwise.

Paul, in II Corinthians 4:16 says “though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” Yet another rule of the universe that cannot be ignored: we all grow old, and eventually die.

But the good news in Paul’s words are that another rule of the universe cannot be ignored: we CAN be renewed internally day-by-day, and we CAN live eternally. (That may sound hokey to some, but hopefully worth looking into!)

Think about Paul’s life. If you aren’t familiar with Paul, I suggest you go check out his story. He endured a lot, yet didn’t lose heart. Think about being beaten... in Paul’s time, there were no antibiotics. It could take a while to recover from something like that, even without complications and infection. And as he aged, that would only get harder. His sight would diminish (and there were no glasses) and hearing get harder (and there were no hearing aids). He was a missionary, and spent most of his time walking between towns - which would also get harder with age. Paul’s life... and let’s face it, YOUR life... are wasting away. Your outer self, no matter how much work you put into it, will only last so long.

My hope isn’t to discourage you from working hard to take care of your temporary outer self. Physical training is of some value. So is working hard to earn more money. However, you will die someday, and you can’t take your money with you. That homer in you hit in high school is a memory lost. The pornography you immersed your brain in is left for some other poor chap to lose himself in. It’s all gone... the easy stuff with the hard stuff. BUT... the one thing worth the effort... your inner self... THAT is what I would hope you would being to put more emphasis on. Put in the hard work there, because effort toward knowing Christ, getting your heart changed, and living eternally after all the temporal crap has faded... that’s actually worth it.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) Where are you investing your treasure today? Is it in easy things? In harder things that don’t matter when your body is about ready to leave this world? Or is it in the eternal impact of who you actually are? Invest... because “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:14) The rest are looking to the easy road... but that leads to destruction.

Find life. Invest.