20 June – Ben Cornell, Hope Church
Easy is the wrong god
Life is not easy (except for one friend of mine, who claims to have reached his mid thirties without any real bumps in the road. Every rule has an exception I suppose). But for the rest of us… We want it to be easy.
It is certainly sold to us as easy in every advert and shop window. The great lie of our culture: life will be easy if… I suppose we start to believe it should be, so we complain when it isn’t. We look for someone to blame. In the 5 star world, the pinnacle of aspiration for many, people fall over themselves to make life so easy we need not lift a finger. Or so it seems.
I heard a new term recently: lawnmower parents. Parents who seek to remove all obstacles from their child’s path. Acting out of love, of course. But, as the saying goes (at least it might now), Easy is the wrong god. Easy is a fantasy. Pursuit of it produces only disappointment and complaint. It certainly does not engender character growth or spiritual growth.
If the pursuit of ease finds its way into our prayer life, however subtly, we will find ourselves praying upstream. God is interested in our spiritual and character growth, specifically growth of our trust in him, dependence upon him. And in that, easy is the enemy. Easy means I don’t need God. Easy means I don’t need to grow. I have it all. I have arrived. Yay. Go me! Except easy can only ever be a facade or a temporary respite from the harsh reality of life in a world infected with sin. We seem to look for it everywhere, but surely, we know we are chasing rainbows.
So, I say again: Easy is the wrong god.