Cleansing Hardship

“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;” (1Pe 4:1 AV)

We are doing a disservice to our younger generations by making life easy.  I know that I am going to sound like and old-fashioned fuddy-duddy here, but it is the truth.  Whether old-fashioned or not.  There is something to be said of hardship.  There is something virtuous about struggle.  The more time and resources our struggles require, the less apt we are to get into trouble.  That is, up to a point.  If the struggle is too great to bear, then it can entice to other sin.  Vices are often born from trouble.  However, this is only the case when one seeks to be free from all hardship.  If we were to embrace hardship as a good thing, then we wouldn’t seek to escape from it.  Peter, in the above observation, teaches us that if we suffer, then we cease from sin.  That is, if we embrace the suffering.

Looking back at my childhood, one could make the case that we never got the chance to be kids.  Some would pity us.  However, looking back at what my friends were like and what they were exposed to, I am grateful for the way we grew up.  We grew up busy in school work and work around the home that we had little idle time.  We had a paper route as soon as we could pull a wagon or sled.  Then when we got our working papers at age fifteen, we were flinging pizza dough at the local shop.  It didn’t keep us out of all trouble.  But it did keep us out of most.  The other evening, I was privileged to hear some talk of growing up on a farm.  I have never had the experience.  Listening to those who did, I realized they experienced the same thing.  They may not have enjoyed working so hard as young people at the time of their experience, but they look back with fondness on the long hours of milking the cows, bailing hay, repairing machinery, and learning how to drive a tracker.  What they did not say but eluded to often was the hardship kept them from making some foolish mistakes that would have come if they were idle.  They preferred the grown-up world of hardship rather than the adolescent world of foolishness.

Our culture is doing a disservice to itself by promoting the possibility of a carefree existence.  All we need is permanent peace, a heart to explore the universe, a food replicater, and a computer to do all our work and we would be completely content and trouble free.  No, not so much.  It is an illusion.  It is a mirage.  We are born unto trouble because it keeps us from worse.  Embrace the hardship.  Cleanliness comes from scrubbing.  Embrace the trouble.  It will keep you from worse.