Intimacy is born of Struggle

M. Scott Peck in his book The Road Less Traveled opens with the words "Life is difficult."

So many of us expect, and want to believe, life is easy. It's not. When we discover it isn't easy we're tempted to toss in the towel. We buy into the myth that if something is difficult it is impossible and not worth the effort.

M. Scott Peck continues, "Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly... ..about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulites as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy."

We often flip that belief to our spiritual life.

Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel says, "There is a myth flousihing in the church today that has caused incalulable harm--once converted, fully converted. In other words, once I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons. Discipleship will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness."

Life is difficult whether we have a spiritual faith and practice or not.

Personally, I struggle. I don't live in struggle as a constant but life has not always been, nor do I expect it to be, all roses for me. Some of the things I've struggled with all my life are still knocking on my back door. I've asked that they be taken away. Some things have been taken away. Others I remain with and I suspect I will til I draw my last breath. Thoughts. Temptations. All seeking to be born into action.

Can I say that I'm okay with the struggle?
Can I say that God's love & presence are enough for me?
Can you?

It may or may not get any easier than this.

Tim King and Frank Martin in their book Furious Pursuit say, "Struggle is what engages us in our relationship with God. He looks for our willingness to remain in the struggle, to continue walking with him, fighting to grasp him, resisting the temptation to give in to our human nature, refusing to give up no matter how hard life gets. It is only through struggle that God lifts us up into (His) larger Story."

Intimacy is born of struggle.