The Need to Struggle

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
- James 1:2-4 -

The Christian life is one of struggle. From the time we enter the narrow gate till the day we enter the gates of splendour, we have to tread that narrow path. We don't often realise this when we first trusted the Lord. "What simpletons we are!" remarked Spurgeon. We think the Christian life is smooth sailing - one freed from trial and temptation. The truth is when we step through that narrow gate, there before us lies the narrow and winding path of which no Christian is exempt.

We are prone to desire a life devoid of struggle. We wish that God would lift us up and out of our troubles so that we may somehow be victorious without having to go through them (if the logic in that statement could ever hold up). But take heart and remember the wide gate and the easy road are for those doomed to destruction, and God makes us conquerors in our trials, not out of them.

There are no short cuts to maturity. The only path to maturity is by way of experience. The only way to Christian maturity is through exercise of faith and through trials and struggles - the struggle to follow Christ and obey his every command; the struggle to stay pure and uncompromising in a fallen world; the struggle to trust in an unseen God when all we can see is trouble. Listen to Spurgeon once again "Your faith will be exercised. An untried faith will be no faith at all. God never gave men faith without intending to try it. Faith is received for the very purpose of endurance."

"What kind of father is that [who lets his child struggle]?" asked Elisabeth Elliot, before answering, "A wise one." Struggles teach us how weak we are. Struggles show us how sufficient he is. And it leads us to live a life that depends solely on the grace of God. Without struggles we would never learn to trust him.