The Stakes Are High

From my high school band director days:
Mrs. Giger! My bassoon solo actually sounds good now!!
Well, I’m glad. What did you do differently?
I finally followed your advice to practice the song. And it worked!!
Aha.
It is something I’ve been trying to teach my seven year old. Working hard at a challenging task brings such a sweet reward.
Any excellent and beautiful ending is the result of working hard at something difficult.
We know this in our adult lives ~ we feel most satisfied after a day full of meaningful challenges that we tackled wholeheartedly; challenges that ended with accomplishment.
Why do we think that life should be different?
If this life is preparation for the life to come, why would we expect it to be easy? Shouldn’t we expect it to be more like boot camp?
…suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope
We think that life should be comfortable, full of the things and people we desire.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
We are offended and outraged when things don’t go as planned.
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.
We decide that this is too hard.
Life is too lonely, too full of hurt, too saturated with grief.
True.
And this loneliness, this hurt, this grief can have purpose.
For it was fitting that (God), for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Eternity is high stakes. We shouldn’t be surprised that the preparation can be grueling.
Each day we have a choice. We can choose to accept what we are given and let God use it to mold us or we can dig in our heels and choose to look for the easy way, the way of least pain and effort, the way of bitterness and discontent.
Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. ~ C. S. Lewis
Life is. We can fight against it and live in a state of war. Or we can surrender to God and be molded into someone who is perfectly ready for eternity.
The stakes are high. Are you ready for the challenge?