These past few days, I’ve been talking to students and my daughters about what it means to do the right thing. We decide this:
It hurts.
This generation, I’m told, avoids pain at all costs. We’ve become experts in pleasure and experts in denying and avoiding suffering.
Doing the right thing hurts. When you do what’s right, you often risk your reputation. You risk losing relationships. You risk your own comfort. It’s painful to choose what you know is right–what you know God wants–especially when everything in you desires the path of least discomfort.
Why should I go against my nature? It feels so very wrong! I think about Proverbs 14:12 where the wise man states: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” It seems right because it feels right–or makes sense–for profit, self-promotion, comfort, security, or pleasure.
But God lays out this whole other way of living, and I’m realizing that it’s not always comfortable. When I obey God, it usually hurts somewhere. That kind of pain, however, produces this overwhelming, incomprehensible, sublime peace and joy.
Nothing compares to the peace of doing the right thing.
I don’t want to be surprised by, fearful of, or repelled by the pain of obedience. I anticipate it.
It hurts, but it’s good.
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Can you remember milestone moments in your faith journey when obedience was painful?