-Pause-

I'm going to take a little break from James today to share something I've been meditating on.

Yesterday, some friends came over and somehow we got to talking about the fact that rarely is anything easy ever worth doing, the opposite is also true.

 It's interesting that hard things usually aren't enjoyable though... at least not in the moment. Even in the smallest things in life- this is true!

Rarely is anyone ever impressed when you tell them you watched a movie over the weekend or had your favorite pizza, but tell them you spent your evening cleaning up the "massive" flood in your basement and they're listening!

 Funny analogy, I know, but think about the truth of it... 

I cannot  think of one thing I've done that was both easy and worthwhile. Sure, there are fun, relaxed moments within the hard seasons, but they always result from the challenges and they never originate lasting friendships or opportunities to speak or live the gospel. Why? Because left to ourselves, we will always choose the easy road. And friends, it is hard to share the gospel. It's uncomfortable. It's offensive. It's politically incorrect. But it's also life!

Easy times are never the things you cherish either!

I volunteered at a camp last summer, and the things I still talk about are the nights we vacuum-sealed ten coolers full of salmon and the week where it rained non-stop and the campers were just as excited about tubing with their counselor (me!) as ever. I don't necessarily talk of the times we stayed up into the wee hours of the night playing card games, or the really good baked-oatmeal, at least not with the same fondness.

There are so many examples I could point to from the Bible which accentuate this point, so many different examples from life... But instead of doing that, I'd like to share with you one of my all-time-favorite quotes that explains why those of us who have yielded our lives to Christ love to choose the more difficult road:

"How can I ever explain to those who insist that we must believe in the world to love it that it is because I disbelieve in the world that I love every breath I take, look forward with ever greater delight to the coming of each spring, rejoice evermore in the companionship of my fellow-humans, to no single one of whom, searching my heart, do I wish ill, and of no single one of whom do I wish to separate myself, in word or thought or deed, or in some prospect of some other existence beyond the ticking of the clocks, the vista of the hills, the bounds and dimensions of our earthly hopes and distress? To accept the world as a destination rather than a staging-post, and the experience of living in it as life's full significance, would seem to me to reduce life to something far to banal and trivial to be taken seriously or held in esteem... In other words, the Christian proposition that he who lives his life in this world shall lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will see it projected unto eternity, is for living, not dying."

-Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time, Chronicle 1: The Green Stick