Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?

Perhaps this blog answers one of the great philosophical questions of the ages.  More likely, it just "kicks the can down the road", raising an equally imponderable one.

Why does life have to be so hard?  Because without hardship, we would not grow, and growth is what God is after in our lives, not ease.

Imagine a gym in which all the weight plates had zero mass.  They provide neither inertial resistance to acceleration nor gravitational loading.  You can get some awesome workouts there, right?  Load the Olympic bar up with 7 or 8 big wheels per side and knock out an effortless hundred reps.  It would be great, right?

Well, it might be good for your ego, for a minute or two.  But then two things would occur to you.   One thing is that everyone else in the gym can also effortlessly push the same "weights" you are pushing.  The other thing is that you find it impossible to grow your muscles.  Week after week, you start to atrophy and lose strength.  Why?  Because it is no longer hard.  Your muscles are no longer challenged, so they cease to grow.

It is like that with the rest of life.  Life throws challenges at us.  If we strain against them, we eventually get strong.  It is hard.  Sometimes, we would like to give up, or trade the massive "weight plates" of our lives for the magical massless ones.  But we are not given that option.  So we get in there and lift what we can, as hard as we can, for as long as we can.  And we grow.

Now this begs the question:  Why did God decide to make it this way?  Certainly, He could have chosen to make things easy for all people at all times.  This is the next question down the road, and I don't have the answer.  If I figure it out, I will let you know!