Life is Difficult

DAILY BYTE

'Life is difficult.’ That’s the opening sentence of M Scott Peck’s book ‘The Road Less Traveled’, that has sold millions of copies around the world since it was first published 30 years ago. It’s been suggested that the opening sentence itself has been responsible for many of the copies that have been sold, because it instantly resonates with people’s lived experience. M Scott Peck writes, ‘Life is difficult,’ and we intuitively respond, ‘Yes, that’s right. It is.’

But here’s a curious thing. While pretty much all of us know intuitively, in our gut, that life is difficult – cognitively, in our heads, we have a hard time accepting that this is indeed so. There is this idea that many people continue to hold onto that life is easy, or at least it should be easy. And so many people spend a great deal of energy bemoaning the struggles, and hardships and difficulties that they face as if this were something abnormal, as if this were some kind of unique affliction that has been specially visited upon them, and unfairly so.

But that’s not how life works. In many traditions there is a more sober recognition of what life is really like. In Buddhist thought, for instance, the first of the Four Noble Truths is that life is dukkha, which means suffering.

The 18th century French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who inaugurated the age of secular intellectualism, observed that alienation lay at the heart of the human condition.

Gordon Cosby, the founder of Church of the Saviour in Washington DC, has famously observed that next to every single person there is a great big pool of tears.

Certainly, as we reflect on our own stories and observe our own experiences we can see for ourselves that life is, indeed, difficult. Or to put it differently, we could say that it is the very nature of life to stumble from one crisis to another.

Cruel teasing takes place even on preschool playgrounds.

Hormones, and acne, and anguished questions of identity play havoc with those adolescent years.

Romantic love relationships can lift us to the heights of rapture and just as quickly drop us into troughs of despair.

The incredible joy and privilege of parenthood is filled with many crises, many sleepless nights, many anxieties, many bitter disappointments. Parents of teenagers often testify to the sobering truth that you can sow a child, but end up reaping a bomb. Certainly, the decision to have a child is the decision for your heart always to live outside of your body.

I could go on. There are the further crises of life related to work, and finance, and ill-health, and old-age. Not to mention the crises of inexplicable suffering or sudden bereavement that can tear at our souls and leave us completely gutted and utterly bereft.

Life is not just difficult – at times it can be brutal. And it raises the pointed question for the people of faith: “Is this what God had in mind when God created the heavens and the earth, and breathed into us the breath of life?”

IS this what God had in mind?

That’s the tough question we’ll be exploring in our devotions this week, as we listen for the hope-filled answer that God offers to the reality of life’s difficulties and crises that come our way. May it be for you Good News.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord, sometimes life is really really hard. Sometimes it’s tough to make sense of it all, and to know what to think. It’s in such times that we need you most of all. Help us to listen to your still, small voice of truth, that comes to us in the midst of the stormy crises of life. May it speak hope and promise to our souls. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)