Why Isn't My Life Easier When I Follow Jesus?

Why isn't life easier? I follow Jesus. I try to be kind to others, I read my bible regularly, I give to my church and charity, yet I often feel like life is a boxing match where I'm in the 12th round against a heavy weight.

Doesn't God...I don't know...kind of...owe me? At least a little?

I mean listen, I know Jesus went to the cross for me and I can never pay him back for that. I get that and I'm so grateful. But shouldn't I get to avoid some of the issues other people deal with because I'm on board with what God asks me to do?

Have you ever thought something like this?  Even if I say that God doesn't owe me one, I often act like it when something less than perfect happens in my life.

I know that Jesus said in this world we will have troubles, but shouldn't that just be stuff like, occasionally somebody tells me I'm dumb for believing in Jesus? Something manageable, something that doesn't really hurt.

I've been a pastor at a mid-sized church for the last 3 years and we've had tons of people dealing with illness and financial problems and addictions and everything else you can name. We've lost several people to cancer in my time. I've had to do a funeral for a 2 day old baby.

That's just the difficulties I hear about. I also have challenges in my own life that just make life hard. My wife and I are still dealing with the financial fallout from the failure of a business we believe God told us to buy several years ago. Having a child with special needs is a never ending battle in numerous ways.

My wife and I occasionally talk about whether we'll ever get to a point where life isn't just so dang hard.

Shouldn't we get off better than the rest of society because we're working to be obedient to Jesus? Shouldn't the abundant life Jesus talks about in John 10:10 be a little more cushy?

I've prayed about this as I really explored the depth of my self centeredness (it was ugly) and I feel like there's 2 reasons why this completely selfish disposition of mine is off base:

First, God is looking for faith.

Listen, if everybody who decided to follow Jesus got a Cadillac, lost 30 pounds and found their dream job, who wouldn't follow Jesus? And how would it be possible for anyone to be a genuine disciple of the man who told us to pick up our cross and follow him?

I don't know about you, but when everything is going well, I actually have the hardest time getting closer to Jesus.

I feel like he occasionally allows my life you involve some chaos so help me remain engaged in discipleship - the process of getting closer to him.

The abundant life Jesus is referring to involves so much more than money and possessions. It's about a life of more meaning. It may not always show up on a bank statement.

Are we willing to trust God to bless us, even when it's not in the manner we would request?

Or, are we only in this thing for what we can get out of it? The scriptures repeatedly affirm that we are called to patiently have faith in the face of doubt or unfulfillment. (James 1:12, Revelation 2:10, Matthew 25:1-13)

Will we trust that God will fulfill his promises to us when all the evidence we see points to the contrary? The word for that is 'faith'.

Second, there is an enemy at work

In Matthew 13:24-30, there's a story called 'The Parable of the Tares'. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but the summary is that Jesus tells of a farmer (representing God) that plants his fields with good seed.

In the night, an enemy plants weeds among the crops.

By the time the farm workers figured it out, they couldn't do anything about it. Pulling up the weeds would damage the crops, so the farmer tells them to let the weeds grow. At harvest time, they will separate the weeds from the crops.

In Strength To Love, Martin Luther King Jr. breaks down this story.

King notes that Jesus never disputes the reality of evil. He does not say that the weeds were an illusion or a state of mind. He says that the weeds - evil - is real.

The other thing Jesus tells us is that God is going to deal with evil once and for all at the time of the harvest.

In the meantime, Jesus calls the satan 'the ruler of this world' (John 12:31).

The kingdom of God is here, and it is yet to fully arrive. We can not expect a world which is not paradise to treat us as though it were.

_________

When I keep these truths in mind - that God is looking for faith and that there is an enemy at work, it helps me approach life more prepared.

There's a big difference to preparing for a beach trip versus preparing to run a Tough Mudder.

God has promised abundant life and he's going to deliver it. It's a promise that I believe in, so I'm willing to put everything I've got into putting myself in a position to receive it.

Socrates and the Tough Mudder

There's an old story that goes something like this: A rich guy goes on a trip. Before he leaves, he calls his household employees together and gave them a task. Each of them got some money to manage for the boss while he was away.

- one got $3,000,000

- another got $1,200,000

- the third one got $600,000

The boss was gone for quite a while. When he came back, he called his three employees in to evaluate their performance.

The first guy had invested it well, and had been able to double the portfolio to 6 million bucks. The boss is thrilled, saying "Great job! My benefit will also be your benefit...I'm going to share the profits with you!"

The second guy also has good news - he doubled his portfolio as well. The boss tells him the same thing - that he's really pleased and that the employee is going to get a reward for his performance.

When the last guy speaks, it's quickly apparent that they didn't go 3 for 3.

The last guy tells his boss that he didn't do anything with his money. He was worried what would happen if he lost it, or if his boss would need access to it, so he put it in a checking account for the entire time. It didn't earn a dime.

The boss was furious with him.

"Are you kidding me!? You didn't even put it in a savings account or an IRA to earn some interest? If I can't even trust you with that, how can I trust you with anything I actually value?"

He was fired right in that meeting.

The story has multiple truths to explore. The obvious one is to do everything you can with what you have been given, but just below the surface of that is another truth: not everybody gets an equal starting point.

Both of the first two guys doubled their investment, but one of them started with a much bigger amount, so his results were magnified. The boss doesn't explain why one got more than another. It was the bosses prerogative to divide his investment however he wanted.

I went road biking with a friend the other day. I normally mountain bike, but I have a friend who road bikes and we agreed to each try the other style. I road biked with my friend, and he will mountain bike with me sometime later this summer.

When I was performing better than he expected, he complimented me and said that the running and mountain biking I do must have 'something to it'.

I told him about how I will be running a fourth Tough Mudder this year and how my current fitness goal is to complete a half full ironman triathlon next summer.

He had the same reaction that many people do when I talk about it, which is some combination of 'you're crazy' and 'why do you do this'?

My wife has asked me the same thing. Many friends and acquaintances have also asked this. I usually give an answer that goes something like this: I like to find my limits and push past them.

In the midst of the ride, though, something occurred to me. I told him the famous quote by Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living." I used to think this applied to philosophical introspection, but it dawned on me that was I applying this to my physical life.

I like to examine my limitations. So that I can push those limitations further out.

And I've done this not only in my physical life, but in my intellectual life as well. I finished a graduate degree and started teaching part time at local universities and colleges. I read books at a reasonable high rate on a wide variety of topics. I'm interested in entering a doctorate program in the next few years.

Spiritually, I threw myself into exploring the nature of God. To the point where I wanted to be involved in growing and strengthening the community of believers known as the Body of Christ. It led me to full time ministry.

I had an epiphany that I'm doing what Socrates said in pretty much every area of my life.

I think that I'm the second guy in that story from above (which you can read in Matthew 25:14-30 if you want the way Jesus told it).

I'm not the smartest guy I know, but I'm a professor. I'm not the fastest or strongest guy I know, but I've completed triathlons. I know better ministers, but I'm part of an amazing community of believers who I get to help lead.

The point I'm making is not that I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none, but rather that I simply wasn't given the 3 million dollars to start with, but that I think I'm doing everything possible with the one million I did get.

Others may have more than I do in their results, but I would bet that most of them started with more than I had to work with.

I think I have gotten pretty good returns on what I was given. And instead of getting frustrated that I didn't get more (with 3 more inches, my baseball career could have gone a lot further), I'm going to get every drop out of what I have to work with.

I didn't want to run races in my 20s because if I couldn't win, I didn't want to compete. I mistakenly thought I should compare myself to what others could do. I knew there would always be somebody faster than I am.

But when I learned to compete against myself, and against the clock, I realized that it was all about maximizing what God has given me.

I'll keep that in mind on June 13th in Virginia when I'm running through tear gas, electric wires and dumpsters full of ice water.

I do this because I want to get the highest rate of return possible out of every part of my life, so that my boss says 'Great job! I'm going to share my profits with you!"

Spiritual Superstars

When I was in little league baseball as a child, there were certain kids who were far and away the best players in the league. Usually, they were bigger, stronger and faster than the vast majority of the rest of us. It was easy to look up to these players, and to envy their prowess. But something funny happened. By the time I was Captain of the Varsity team in High School, playing American Legion ball (a step up from Varsity) and being recruited by colleges, none of those guys were around anymore. Many of them didn’t play, and those that did were simply ordinary.

What happened was that, while they had physically developed a little faster and gained an edge, the rest of us caught up. They didn’t have to work hard to succeed as kids, it came naturally because of their advantage. The rest of us had to work hard to find ways to compete with them. By the time we caught up physically, we now had more tools in our repertoire to go along with the physical abilities. They didn’t develop those tricks and tactics, so they no longer held any advantage.

I read a book called Seal Team Six a while back that talked about this issue. The guy who wrote the book mentions the fact that many of the All American football players who enter training drop out the fastest. They’re not used to having a situation where their superior physical talent can’t get them through. But the guys who are used to having to scrap and fight to keep up have what it really takes: a never say die attitude.

I like to run adventure races like the Tough Mudder. The only way you finish a race like that is to have the attitude of “Screw this race, I’m gonna finish if it kills me.” I know they’re going to throw really tough obstacles at me over and over and over again. My approach is to get by each one when I come to it, no matter what.

I do these races to find my limits, and then push beyond them. To become something greater than I am.

When you see people who are your same age that seem to have it all together while you’re struggling not to fall apart, don’t get down on yourself. Realize that you’re getting stronger. You’re learning how to handle adversity. You’re gaining wisdom and perspective that will help you in future situations.

There’s no need to be angry at people who seem to have it easy. God knows what is coming toward each of us in this life, and he knows when and how to prepare each of us.

The goal God has given us isn’t to look better than everybody else, to look like we have it all together. The goal is to fight the good fight, to run the good race. To keep the faith, and receive the reward that he will give us when all has been said and done.

Don’t try to be a Spiritual Superstar. Be a Spiritual Tough Mudder.