God Never Said It Would Be Easy
God never said it would be easy.
I think of that as I look over my team of Sparkies.
One is lying on the floor because “she was tired and not feeling real well.” Next to her, sits another child who explains “I throwed up three times today, but now I’m all better.”
“My sister’s sick too,” another Sparkie tells me. “she’s coughing too much so Mom wouldn’t let her come.” The child herself is coughing the entire time she’s talking to me. I wonder what constitutes “too much” coughing.
I listen to this as I watch in horror as one of my clubbers runs in for the pin. She grabs it, just as another child slides into the center. My clubber trips and flies over him and lands face first on the floor.
Then there’s the child who, for some reason, wore very slippery boots, causing her to fall seven times as she made her way around the circle. (She never got up enough speed to actually be running around the circle.)
My one child who is not hurt, sick or wearing slippery boots has been crying continually. Though a leader personally worked with him for 20 minutes, he could not get his verse and therefore, could not get the long-awaited book that he desires. Thus tears.
But again, God never promised it would be easy.
He didn’t promise Noah it would be easy to construct a bigger-than-a-football-field-sized boat or Moses that it would be easy to lead the whiney Israelites. He didn’t promise Gideon it would be easy to command an army or Daniel that it it would be easy to stand for what is right.
No, God didn’t promise Epaphroditus that it would be easy when he worked so hard serving that he ended up sick), nor did he promise Paul that all would go well on his missionary journeys.
But yet giving up is so easy. I could be home in my warm house, watching a good movie or getting lost in a exciting mystery or even working … for Awana. (My office at Headquarters is a lot more peaceful … and at times, easier … than being in charge of these wiggly, pouty, on-the-verge-of-throwing-up children.)
Are we getting through to them? At all?
A long time ago, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. (2 Corinthians 4:1) Yes, things will happen, but we should not be discouraged.
Later, in the same chapter, Paul writes again that we are not to lose heart. (Makes me think he knew some of the Corinthians were doing just that!) Who better to remind us to keep going than the man who faced persecution, prison, physical beatings and shipwreck?
I look at my Sparkies. Time to choose one of them to play the next game. I find the only one who is not coughing, crying, curled up in a ball in the corner, wearing slippery boots or clutching an ice pack in his hand … and send her to the starting line.
God never said it would be easy.
