Scripture: Matthew 7:13-14
Journal: Where are you choosing easy over hard these days? Where are you embracing the hard way? Are you trusting that the hard way is the way
to life?
Reflection:
Easy or hard?
Which would you choose? Which do
you choose? It doesn’t seem like much of
a choice does it? I mean, who wouldn’t
choose easy, given the choice, right?
That is unless hard leads to something good and beautiful;
something that easy could never offer.
Which would seem to be the case here.
But we can’t just be convinced that hard is the better way, we
must be willing to enter that hard way as well. That is the way to life. Unfortunately, we are addicted to easy,
which is much to our demise. For the
easy way—be it the way of salvation or the way of the spiritual life in
general—never leads to life. The most
difficult experiences of this life are always the ones that produce something
really good and fruitful deep within us.
The hard way is the path that, once chosen and entered into,
makes you who you are. It is the way of
becoming. Hard is not to be
avoided at all costs, but to be embraced and met head on. Without the hard way our lives will
never amount to much of anything of eternal value. So let’s embrace those parts of life that are
particularly hard at the moment, knowing that through them something good and
beautiful is being grown in us that could happen no other way.
Prayer
Closing
Prayer: Dear
Father, you know how I have resented the problems in my life, and you know how
I have resisted the things that have caused me pain that I can’t change. You
know that I’ve asked you many times for an explanation that has never come.
Today, I want to stop fighting you over
things I don’t understand. Forgive me. I want to begin the path of peace. So I
ask you for help. Help me to change the things that I can, and help me to
accept the things that cannot be changed. Help me, Jesus, to trust in your
loving care when things don’t make sense. Help me to trust that you are a good
God and that you have my best interest at heart.
Today, I make an unconditional surrender
of all my life to your loving care and control. Please give me your strength
and wisdom and peace and purpose. I want to make peace with God by faith so
that I can have the peace of God through you, Jesus Christ. Amen. ~Rick Warren
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