Have you ever heard someone exclaim, “Why does this always happen to me?” or “That’s just my luck.”, as if they are somehow being singled out by life? We often have this notion that everyone else has it easier than we do.
The truth is that life is hard - no exceptions for anyone. We don’t want it to be and somewhere deep inside of us we keep looking for a life that is pain free. It’s got to be out there somewhere. The truth is that a pain-free life doesn’t exist! Life is difficult and acceptance of this truth can spare us a lot of heartache.
When we resist the truth, we become angry, bitter, depressed, and on an on the list goes. In fact, psychologists regularly deal with people who can’t believe life has dealt them such a cruel blow. At the core of their beings, they really believe that life is supposed to be easy, at least for them. Therefore, when expectations aren’t met, they become angry with life and angry with God. If God is good, how could He allow such and such to happen.
The tragic thing is that Christians have also bought into this lie that life is supposed to be easy and some even propagate it. If we become Christians, we escape pain right? Well what happened to living a self-sacrificing life? We don’t hear a lot about that these days. Nobody wants to suffer. What ever happened to taking up your cross? Too often God becomes the cosmic bell-hop, if you will, to our every whim.
I read a quote by Arthur Matthews, a missionary to China, that was rather sobering. Arthur was a missionary to China from 1938-1953. He said this in one of his books…
“We tend to look at the circumstances of life in terms of what they may do to our cherished hopes and convenience, and we shape our decisions and reactions accordingly. When a problem threatens, we rush to God, not to seek his perspective, but to ask him to deflect the trouble. Our self-concern takes priority over whatever it is that God might be trying to do through trouble….
An escapist generation reads security, prosperity, and physical well-being as evidences of God’s blessing. Thus when he puts suffering and affliction into our hands, we misread his signals and misinterpret his intentions.”
Something to think about! Certainly God is a God of blessing, but I also believe our God is actually too kind to leave us to our self-centered ways. He might just want us to learn something. God forbid that my own wrong choices and decisions would have to with any of my pain. Could it be that God is more concerned with our character than whether things are always easy?
“Jesus, although he was a son, learned obedience from what he suffered.” Hebrews 5:8
So the way I see it, there are some that probably have it easier than you and I for whatever reason, but there are no doubt those who have it worse. No one escapes pain or difficulties in this life. Acceptance of this can actually bring a lot of peace and help us to cope with life on a daily basis. With God’s help, we can learn to confront our problems rather than running from them and become better and stronger people because of it.
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Janet Daughtry, MDiv, CBC, is a certified Christian life coach. Visit her website at ChristianLifeCoaching.com.
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