[Note: This blog entry is response to a question from a loyal reader of this blog, who asked the following question in my suggestion box [1]: “In this life we are continually wanting to find a quick fix, a shortcut or a nice and easy way, why are they not a good idea in most all areas of life?”]

Human beings, especially in our contemporary area, greatly appreciate convenience. A well-known and fairly successful company, Staples, markets its products and services as an “Easy” button when people deal with frustrations and difficulties. My somewhat younger peers have been accused of having their own persistence ruined by helicopter parents who hover over children, teens, and young adults (and, sometimes, not-so-young adults) to make sure that no frustration comes up that is not dealt with immediately. A few years ago, a diet drug called phen-fen became massively popular as a miracle weight-loss cure, until it was found to cause heart difficulties leading to a substantial risk of early death for those unwary enough to believe in a quick fix for one’s waistline. What all of these aspects of our present world have in common is a devotion to the easy way as opposed to the more difficult ways that lead to lasting insight and change.

This is not a new problem. The classic work of Christian allegory Pilgrim’s Progress discussed the problem of people who considered themselves believers who believed in an easy route to heaven. Whether people sought to buy their way into heaven through indulgences, or look to resolve the tensions that fill our existence between law and grace, mercy and justice, and others like them, we all try to find an easier road than the one we are called to live. Of course, many of us at some times and in some ways live easy lives. Even though I tend to consider my own life fairly difficult for the most part, I am a well-educated American, and for all of the difficulties of my life I have had resources to draw upon related to my institutional loyalties as well as personal friendships, as well as my own God-given talents and gifts and resourcefulness. I could be a lot worse off, in other words. Yet we seldom tend to think of the barriers to our lives that come from our ease, and tend to notice troubles when we are in a given trial that we do not know how to resolve and that we want to escape as soon as possible.

As is the case in many areas of life, the Book of Job is useful in looking at how those in suffering view the problem of ease. Job 21:23 states: “One person dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease.” Job, living in torment, looks at the hypothetical example of someone who dies peacefully and untroubled. Yet while Job suffered torment, and none of us like torment, that suffering was ultimately for his benefit. Someone whose life is at ease, without any struggle whatsoever, is not someone following God, for all of those who are sons of God are rebuked and chastened by God in order to refine and build godly character, which does not come naturally to us. So someone whose life is entirely at ease is not someone who we should emulate. If our lives are filled with struggle and toil, there is at least the possibility that our struggle and toil are forming useful qualities that help us live better lives.

There is at least one additional benefit to a lack of ease that Job recognizes that flows naturally from the character building that comes from an absence of ease in life. Job 12:5 states: “Those who are at ease have contempt for misfortune as the fate of those whose feet are slipping.” Here we see the negative side (as is not uncommon in Job’s melancholy reflections while suffering) of the picture, that those who live in ease look down on those who are struggling. This is so, else we would not have a problem with the prosperity gospel in Western civilization. It is only elites who live lives of comfort and ease and privilege that believe their socioeconomic status to be a token of their spiritual status. Believers who are struggling and toiling and clearly not enjoying the fruits of their good works are not so deluded. Yet the converse of this particular dark statement is a more encouraging one for believers. It is our own struggles that give us compassion for others who struggle, for to the extent that we know our own slips and stumbles, we are more likely to lend a hand to encourage others who are stumbling around us, in the knowledge that while we cannot walk someone else’s road for them, at least we can give them company while we walk together to make the journey less lonely.

Ultimately, our desire for the easy way is a desire for a happy destination apart from the journey that makes it worthwhile. Yet our own hearts and minds spurn that which is gained without effort, considering it worthless. In all areas of life, it is those things that are scarce, that require great resources and great effort, that are viewed as precious. That which comes easily is taken for granted and taken advantage of, whether it be the people around us or the water that we drink and bathe in or the air that we breathe. On the contrary, to the extent that we struggle for something, we will hold it as precious, because we will know the effort and toil that went into its attainment and enjoyment. If that means we toil a bit to make a decent living, it only means we appreciate our standard of living a little more. If we struggle to communicate with others or find loving relationships, those relationships are only more precious for being the subject of more effort. If it means that we fight against our natural tendency to gain weight, it only means we are more aware of the perverse nature of life in this world a little bit more. And if we are particularly wise, we may see our struggles in one area of life, and extrapolate those lessons to areas where we do not have to struggle so much, so that we may appreciate areas where we have life a little easier, and be more compassionate and tender to those who are weak where we are strong. For we do not learn God’s ways or get to know God or other people in an instant, but rather through a journey in which we share joy and struggle. A life of only shortcuts [2] is a life without any depth or any nobility, and what is the worth of such a life for those of us who seek an eternity of glory in God’s Kingdom?

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/suggestion-box/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/no-shortcuts-to-salvation/