The Difficult Easy Life

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” - Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 11 verses 29-30

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." - Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 7 verses 13-14

Okay, so which is it? Is the Christian life hard or easy?

On the one hand, it is terrifically hard. Following Jesus means leaving behind so many forces that surround me. There are billboards and websites and movies and books and clubs and fashions and traditions and a million other things in the culture around me that would push me from God. And I must be wary of so many dangerous broken parts within me. My jealousy and pride and anger and lust and shame and selfishness and fear and a hundred other distortions make me less aware of God.

Add to this my spiritual sluggishness - my tendency to be lazy and foolish. My unwillingness to spend the time with God that I know I need. If I don't have time in my life with God, I know I will be less than what I could be. But it's so hard! A million tangible, touchable things crowd in on me, and God is not touchable. So my heart too often stays out of his hands, and I don't receive his transformative touch.

Finding time and desire for the whole thing - it's hard.

And yet, it is so much easier.

In my job, I often have to provide counsel to people who are making choices that are very far out of line with God's plans and desires. As a man trained in God's word, I can often see the pitfalls that are before them that they cannot see. I have told people, "Don't go that way! Don't do that! It's going to hurt" and been ignored, and I have seen the disasters come upon them.

In my own life, my own sins have been a disaster. Even ones that have not had painful consequences that have hurt others - even those sins have come with pain. Deep shame. Withering pain and humiliation - even when no one else thinks about them or remembers them any more, I do and it hurts.

Life lived without God hurts! When we do what ought not to be done, or we do not do what ought to be done, life hurts. God has made us to be good, beautiful creatures, but sin distorts us, bends us, breaks us, and the breaking is painful. A broken bone has nothing on a broken soul!

Jesus calls to us and tells us that his way is easy and his burden is light. His way of leading us to God reveals to us that God expects so very little from us - he just wants our love and trust, and a heart open and willing to be molded by him. He really does do the rest. It is God that empowers us to righteous living - not our choices or our will, but by his power. When we make our hearts rest with him - when we pray, when we fast or study, when we meditate, when we worship with upraised hearts - when we do these things, he pours his spirit into us and we become better people. It's easy because he is helping us do it.

But to believe this - that's hard. To find our way to Jesus' difficult path of trust is so challenging. It's so much "easier" to not try at all and presume upon God's love, or else try to prove ourselves to God and try to earn his love. But these ways lead to destruction.

Jesus way calls for work - the hard work of making God a priority and setting time to be with him, of opening my heart to him - even the parts I am ashamed off - and letting him work in me. It calls for the work of learning to love, being taught by him to care about other people and let other people care about me. It's hard to really do. Having fun with people is easy, but loving them - really loving them - that's hard. The work Jesus calls us to is hard, because it means overcoming all the forces of sin and death that are at work within us and around us, and putting our trust in God.

But the work he calls us to is easy once it is begun. When we begin spending time with God, he ignites our passion and brings us joy. We find the work that was once a duty becomes a pleasure.

Getting into it can be so hard. Finding the way is difficult, and staying on it can be difficult to. But walking with Jesus, really being with him and with his people - that's the best way of life that there is. That's easy!