Running Strong

Let’s start with why life is so dang hard.

You try to lose a little weight, but it never seems to happen. You think of making a shift in your career, maybe even serving God, but you never actually get to it. Perhaps a few of you do make the jump, but it rarely pans out the way you thought. You try to recover something in your marriage, and your spouse looks at you with that glance that says, “Nice try,” or “Isn’t it a little late for that?” and the thing actually blows up into an argument in front of the kids.

Yes, we have our faith. But even there – maybe especially there – it all seems to fall rather short of the promise. There is talk of freedom and abundant life, of peace like a river and joy unspeakable, but we see precious little of it, to be honest.

Why is it that, as Tillich said, it’s only “here and there in the world and how and then in ourselves” we see any evidence of a new creation? Here and there, now and then. In other words . . . not much. When you stand them side by side, the description of the Christian life practically shouted in the New Testament compared with the actual life of most Christians, it’s . . . embarrassing.

Paul sounds like a madman, and we look a little foolish, like children who’ve been held back a grade. Why is it that nearly every good thing, from taking the annual family vacation to planning a wedding to cultivating a relationship, takes so much work?

It’s almost as if there is something set against us.

(Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, p. 5)

Bob Newhart is classic…