Persevere through Struggle

As much of a downer as this quote is, it is undeniably true.  No doubt, life involves struggle.  None of us escapes the brash contrast of life’s endless burdens sandwiched together with our countless, often unacknowledged blessings. Whatever we look for we notice.  I firmly believe if you look for blessings your find them.  Yet even the most die hard optimist cannot deny life contains unavoidable moments of struggle, fear,  pain, remorse, conflict.

Therefore, I’d like to take artistic license to tweak the above quote to read, “To live is to suffer; to survive is to persevere with hope in the midst of suffering, and find meaning in the process.”  Suffering and struggle are inescapable; perspective and perseverance are not.  Perspective and perseverance  must be sought, nourished, and unrelentingly pursued.

Struggles come from every dimension of life- the terrifying power of nature, the betrayal of our bodies when they succumb to illness, misfortunes, or malfunctions; but  most often our struggles originate with others (or sometimes with ourselves).  Ponder your most bitter memory, most  heated conflict, or most passionate, anger-filled outburst.  What direction was that intensity focused? Mostly likely at a fellow human being, or even yourself.  When we are convinced we’re right, or have been wronged, or things just plain don’t go our way, we default to anger- filled,  blame slinging. Then we nourish and feed that bitterness justifying our feelings with the flames of self righteousness. We are born with this tendency- welcome to the human condition. We may mature, but most of us simply transition from outward temper tantrums observable at toddlerhood to internal mental tantrums we play over in our mind.

It’s significantly more gratifying to be right than to be wrong, so our brains become very agile at finding ways to justify our logic and identify scape goats upon which to place blame or direct  anger.  However God isn’t terribly interested in our being right if it results in contempt, anger, or hatred against one another.  He is interested in doing right, in being merciful, in forgiving, in extending grace, in pouring out love.

If we step back and view our adversary as life itself and the inherent struggles that are an inevitable part of living, we may be able to distract our self-centered brains long enough to pause, reflect, and learn. When we remove the perception of “others” as being the problem, life gets a whole lot less hostile.  Take the time to acknowledge challenge, pain, and struggle when they blindside us. Rather than resisting and fighting and denying their existence, what if we gave struggle a big bear hug, looked it in the eye, thanked it for it’s presence and the lesson it is about to gift us with, then body slam it to the ground and leap frog over it to the next game level of life?

God never said life would be easy or problem free.  Jesus said his burden was light in Matthew 11:30, but a burden it is nonetheless.  Therefore, although I don’t believe God is necessarily the author of all our suffering,  God clearly doesn’t intend for our life to be burden free.  God seems to like to turn our human assumptions on their head.  For instance,  “So the last shall be first…”(Matthew 20:16)  “…it is more blessed to give than receive.” (Acts 20:35) Likewise with suffering and burdens, I believe there are gifts and lessons to be learned through them.  We’re not to necessarily seek them out and deliberately put ourselves in painful situations, but when adversity does enter your field of vision accept it and thank God for the gift that will emerge from the trial.  Sometimes the gift is in the form of a lesson for ourselves, but sometimes it is a lesson for others.

1 Thessalonians 5;18 instructs us, ” In every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  While Romans 8:28 instructs us to trust in God’s process, ” And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God…”

So accept suffering as it enters, but don’t allow it’s torment to linger.  Acknowledge its existence, process the grief, and then persevere holding fast to hope, while scanning the horizon for the lessons and blessings sure to come.