the hard part

I once heard a minister say that the hardest part of being a minister is being a Christian. I think he meant to convey that faith is hard work, and I buy that because it rings true to my own experience.

It’s funny because we talk about faith in God using terms like “surrender” and that seems to imply a lack of action. When I think of surrender, I think of a white flag waived sheepishly over the head of someone who believes that throwing in the towel is his only choice, his last hope.

That’s not what it means to surrender to God.

Surrendering to God is not the absence of action so much as it is the applied and intentional taming of your own will. When I find myself surrendering to God that usually means I’m doing something he wants me to be doing that I don’t care for. It usually means I’m acting, not giving up. It usually requires bravery and tenacity on my part. I am typically at my best when I’m surrendering, not my worst.

I don’t surrender all the time, though. There are a fair number of times when I take the easy way out, doing what I want to do and ignoring whatever the call of God might be leading me toward. Sometimes, as though my actions are no more complicated that a simple circuit, I just follow the path of least resistance. Those tend to be my low moments.

I think the hardest thing about being a Christian is being a Christian. There doesn’t seem to be much that’s easy about that. It is, if you’re really doing it, an all-or-nothing kind of thing. In my book, that’s hard work.