DO THE HARD THING!

By Andrea Guachalla

We live in a society that chooses comfort over hard work and entertainment over things that require critical thinking. A society that has made oneself the center of all things. And though these things might bring immediate satisfaction, I don’t think our generation is aware of how damaging it is to always indulge our immediate needs without thinking of the long-term consequences. 

We have come to a point where everything is about choosing the easiest way out of anything that is slightly unpleasant. Even if the unpleasantness is only temporary and necessary to achieve something bigger.

If we don’t like the bachelor program we started we leave it without a second thought. If we got offended by something a friend said we disengage from the relationship. If we think a job is too hard or is not up to our expectations we quit immediately and go on to search for one that requires little effort and pays well. We stop any diet or exercise routine we started if we don’t see results within the first few days. 

Our idol: whatever is quick and easy

Quick and easy. That’s how we want to live our lives.

We want to travel the world and stay in expensive hotels and then post pictures on Instagram for people to envy, without making the effort of saving money to do it. We want to be successful academics, or businessmen, or artists without having to go through the initial phase of trying and failing, and trying again, and succeeding after investing a lot of work, tears, and time into our projects. We want to enter a relationship with a godly man or woman without investing time on making new friendships. We want to get married with the perfect person without having first learned what marriage is, and having worked on our character flaws that might make us an undesirable life partner. We want to look healthy and fit without taking the time to study the basics of nutrition and physical activity, nor putting in some effort on sticking to an exercise and dietary routine. 

What’s quick and easy, those are the things we value. And that’s the exact reason we have become less capable of dealing with anxiety and solving problems. We want successful results without the effort that precedes it, and that’s why most of our plans remain as just that: imaginary plans that we will never act upon.

Social media, the entertainment industry, and modern marketing have exacerbated the problem all the more. If we want food, we don’t even need to walk up to the store to buy it: we can order it. If we want to have a conversation, we don’t need to call a friend to meet up and talk: we can chat with people online or spend countless hours watching reels, and posts and TV shows that make us go numb. If we want intimacy, we don’t need to go and talk to a close friend or family member: we can access all sorts of pornography content on the internet that will fill that void momentarily. If we want to look fit and beautiful, we don’t need to spend hours researching what is best for our health and trying different products and routines: we can get cosmetic surgery and easy fixes of all kinds that are readily available all over the internet.

We don’t need to do anything anymore. We have become some sort of animal whose only focus is what is easy and fun. But this is absolutely NOT the way to live our lives, nor a lifestyle that glorifies God.

The easy way out is never the best

Yes, it is easy to disengage from a relationship when a friend has offended you, but it is out of cowardice. Do the hard thing! Do what God commands! Go and confront this person for what they said, forgive them and seek reconciliation. Yes, it is easy to go back to eating unhealthy food because a diet didn’t have immediate results, but it is to your own detriment. Do the hard thing! Do some research, create good habits, care for your body consistently. Yes, it is easy to spend hours scrolling on Instagram or Facebook while you should be stewarding your time for something else, but it is out of laziness. Do the hard thing! Make a plan, invest your time on something that is worthy, something that glorifies God and serves others.

It is easy to avoid talking to that new visitor at church because you don’t know them and it takes effort to go and have a chat, but it doesn’t help them nor does that honor God. Do the hard thing! Engage in a conversation with that new person who you could preach the Gospel to. It is easy, when one is struggling with something, to isolate and avoid talking about it with other people, but it is not for your good nor for others’. Do the hard thing. Be vulnerable, share what is going on with your family, and people from church.

And this applies to everything. When work is not going well, when a project is having major issues, when we see someone struggling and don’t know how to help them. There is always an easy way out, we always have the option of being indifferent to other peoples’ needs, or disengaging from projects and people and situations just because they require some effort. But it is almost never the best.

You either serve God or yourself

The next time you are presented with two options, think twice and reflect on which of those glorifies God more and GO FOR IT. You will almost certainly find that it is the hardest thing to do, the one we are not inclined to do, the one that glorifies God more and helps us focus on the well being of others instead of ours. 

There is a reason God has called us to take up our cross and follow Him, and it is because the Christian life is exactly that: to deny ourselves, to choose not to indulge ourselves, to do the hard thing, to serve God knowing it will be harder than serving ourselves.