(Below is an email I sent out to my small group on February 24th, 2009)
All right you guys... I'm going to miss small group next week, because I will be in Poland, but I had a few things I wanted to share with you about the chapter we went through on Sunday:
We talked about doing hard things that go above and beyond what is expected or required. Some of us are just raising our eyebrows and shaking our heads, thinking that it's all we can do just to tread water, never mind make any forward progress! The trouble with this particular set of hard things is that no one is going to make you do them; they are entirely self-motivated. They will be set before you, and you will be challenged... but you can just walk away. There is danger, however, in walking away from hard things.
"The cowardly thing is also the most dangerous thing." -C. S. Lewis
When we shrink from doing hard things, from pushing ourselves, we are playing the coward. It's far easier to turn and run than it is to stand and fight... but what happens to the man on the battlefield who gives way to fear and runs from his enemies? He is shot in the back; he never even has a chance to fight back and perhaps emerge victorious. Think of a boxer in the ring; if he enters the ring and never throws a punch, how can he expect to win the fight? Unless that soldier is fully committed to his cause and will hold his ground, even pushing into enemy territory, he has no hope of winning the battle.
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."
- Colossians 3:23
"When better is possible, then good is not enough." -From Becoming a Person of Influence
Spiritual growth is like trying to go up the down escalator. It can be done; it is far from impossible. However, if you just stand on the steps, they will carry you back to the bottom and leave you no better off than when you began to climb them. But if you get a running start and charge all the way to the top, you can reach your goal. This may seem like a silly comparison, but there is a serious danger in letting things slide. If we let the small things go--chores, homework, good relationships--and don't consider that laziness and complacency, then eventually the bigger things will start sliding too--finances, college, marriages--the way an avalanche picks up speed and destroys all in it's path.
"A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest--and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man."
-Proverbs 6:10-11
"For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them"
-Proverbs 1:32
What you are right now is all that you will ever be; there is no guarantee of a tomorrow. So what are you striving to be today?
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -Anne Frank
I also think that we need another motivation check. Why are we striving to 'do hard things'? Is it to make better grades? Make more money? Improve our friendships? Not really. Those are pleasant side-effects of doing hard things, but they are not the reason we ought to do them. We do these things and strive our hardest because it is pleasing to God that we work wholeheartedly at whatever task He sets us. He is testing and strengthening us with the small things; as we prove our mettle and grow in responsibility and discipline, He will entrust us with more.
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."
-2 Timothy 1:7
Let us have the courage now to take hold of what God has given us as young Christians: power, love and self-discipline. Let us not shrink back from the things He asks of us, but rather strive each day to do them will all our might, for the love of God.
You will be in my prayers... and I will have much more to share with you when I get back from Krakow!
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