 Take it Easy
It seems as though everyone is chasing the easy street. Everyone is looking for a smooth path to a comfortable life. But in life we often deal with circumstances and obstacles that challenge our pursuit of ease and comfort. This is called frustration. Frustration is defined as “a feeling of dissatisfaction, often accompanied by anxiety or depression, resulting from unfulfilled needs or unresolved problems.” I think that we can add that the common way the word is used is to refer to when we are finding some task hard to do or problem difficult to solve. Since frustration has its root in dissatisfaction, the more that we are focused on our own comfort or our own expectations the more likely we are to be upset and frustrated. My Way This means that the harder you try to please yourself through pleasure, comfort, achievement, discipline, hard work, sacrifice, or selfishness, the more you are going to be dissatisfied. If you are seeking to create happiness by finally getting the degree, the house, the job, the spouse, the kids, or anything else, you need to know that it will not work! All of those things are fine things that God may choose to give to you as good gifts (James 1:17) and they are worth your faithful effort while living a God glorifying life, but they cannot deliver the soul satisfying joy that every image bearer of God is truly longing for. The more we prioritize our own happiness the more we will ultimately sink into despair, depression, and destruction. This is because we were not created to serve ourselves and seek our own comfort and glory. That notion that we should judge according to what we think will be best for our satisfaction is as old as the serpent’s temptation of Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:1-8) and as sophisticated as the fiction that everything can be accounted for in terms of evolutionary advancement. Whether it’s satanism, darwinism, or selfism, the lie is always to focus on ourselves and take our eyes off of Jesus! (Hebrews 12:1-3) The Hard Way When Jesus was instructing the multitudes in the famous sermon on the mount, He compared the two paths that lie before all of humanity (Matthew 7:13-14). One path is a ten lane highway, straight, smooth, flat, and easy. The other road is hard, narrow, and unattractive. Jesus' point is that the easy road will be the road that most people seem to take. It will be the road that seems to make the most sense and have the most benefits. But its destination is destruction. To add to the misery, the further down that road one gets, the closer they are to destruction and the further they are from salvation. As hope fades, all that is left is the anxiety and depression in our definition of frustration. The Only Way The Lord Jesus has said that He is THE way, THE truth, and THE life (John 14:6). The point is that only in Jesus will we find true happiness. It is also important to point out that if we conclude that any of the good things that I have listed above are necessary for us to be happy, then Jesus would have to share glory with those things. Our God does not share his glory with any idol (Isaiah 42:8). So if those things are idols, then either God will let us have them to show us that they can’t make us happy or He will keep them from us because He knows that we will be consumed by our idolatry. Jesus is also the truth. This means that He protects and delivers us from the lies that would tempt us to idolatry and selfishness. Finally, Jesus is the life. Only Jesus can and will save His people from destruction. The only way to truly escape eternal frustration is to turn to Christ who can fully and eternally satisfy our needs and resolve our great problem which is our own sin. Since Jesus is the exclusive and only way, the only correct response is to turn from our own way to Him (repentance) and trust in Him fully (faith).
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