When The Easier Way Seems So Much Better

There are definitely days when easier seems so much better. Better than what? Better than just about anything.

When the house is a mess and there’s a basket full of laundry to do, it would be so much easier to sit on the couch, eat chocolate and drink coffee.

When it’s time to get outside for my daily walk, it would be so much easier to pop some popcorn and pop in a movie.

When relationships need to be built and tended to, it would be so much easier to retreat into my personal cocoon and avoid humanity altogether.

When I need to dig into Scripture and learn something about who Jesus Christ really is, it would be so much easier to read a two-paragraph devotion and call it a day.

The easier way seems great at the time - no muss, no fuss, no energy expended or mental capacity used. But what happens in our hearts and minds when all we do in life is choose the easier way?

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leaders to destruction, and many there be which in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leaders unto life, and few there be that find it. Matthew 7:12-14

Many people use the easier, broader, wider gate because that’s easier. There’s no effort required to walk through a great big gate. But that gate leads nowhere except destruction. Anybody can use that gate. That’s the easier way.

Jesus tells us that the easier way isn’t for us. Easier may look better - and look easier - but it’s not for us. We are called to be among the few who find that strait and narrow gate, the more difficult way, the way that leads to life. I find it interesting that Jesus gave this directive immediately after the “Golden Rule” verse. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them... because this is the more difficult way, the challenging gate that stretches us and grows us. It forces us to choose Jesus and His way over the easier way that feels so good at the time. But “at the time” eventually ends with nothing to show for it except an empty coffee cup and a two-paragraph devotion that you don’t even remember.

Do you want to be stretched? Do you want to grow and mature as a Christian? Do you want to walk in the gate that leads to life? The only way to do that, Jesus said, was to choose that gate. It will be a strait and narrow gate that may challenge you, but the blessings on the other side of that gate are more than worth the effort!