Remember life without microwaves and dishwashers? What about those days of clotheslines and push mowers?
Some of you young chicks cannot fathom a time before air fryers and air pods. Toting an outdated iPhone feels akin to the Dark Ages. (You make me feel so old!)
Entrepreneurs spend an inordinate amount of time creating new gadgets and platforms to make the daily grind easier. AI apps can now do everything from creating customized resumes to translating languages on the spot…in your own voice! It’s truly unfathomable how quickly such inventions have radically replaced our need to do hard things.
I LOVE comfort and convenience that seemed impossible a generation ago. Efficiency is my middle name!
But, the more I watch the world around me, the more concerned I become about the toll it’s taking on us.
As we seek to make life easier, we inadvertently teach a generation that adversity is harmful. We avoid it at all costs! Most millennials would rather take the long way home than tackle daunting situations. We now appropriate the word “trauma” for nearly any discomfort.
It leaves me asking, “What effect does adversity have on us as humans?”
Stay with me. German psychologists tested two groups of rats. Researchers fed the first group each day with no striving involved. They “compassionately” laid the food before the rats. It was theirs for the taking.
For the second group, these scholars created a maze. The rats struggled to obtain their food. And…every day, the scientists altered the maze, so the rats could not predict tomorrow’s pursuit. They faced adversity daily simply to survive!
When the examiners compared both groups, they discovered something shocking. Confronting difficulty resulted in no harm whatsoever to the second group. Quite the opposite, the rats forced to solve problems and face hardships actually lived six months longer than those having everything handed to them. Y’ALL! In rat years, that’s a whole lifetime!
Are you getting this? Though we avoid hard things like the plague, facing challenges makes us stronger! It lengthens our lives!
Parents, are you connecting the dots? We love our children so much that we instinctively rush in to alleviate any pain and suffering. But, are we helping them or ultimately harming them?
Of course, we never stand by while our children experience real danger. I’m NOT suggesting that! But, I AM saying, perhaps we rush in to rescue too quickly in too many situations. Maybe our children (AND WE!) need to discipline ourselves for daily difficulties instead of always taking the easy way out!
We remember great heroes of history precisely because they didn’t take shortcuts. They confronted adversity. They tackled problems instead of avoiding them. As a result, it lengthened their lives!
My own living consistently proves that the opposition I initially resist the most often brings the greatest blessing.
What are you facing right now that you’d rather scoot around? What if you chose to forego immediate comfort and intentionally do hard things?
Facing challenges looks different for all of us. Maybe it’s sitting around your Thanksgiving table with people who see the world completely differently. Perhaps it’s demonstrating love to a seemingly unlovable co-worker.
What about awakening earlier to read Scriptures that renew your mind or staying up later to read books that make you better?
What hard thing will you confront today? Overcoming hard things works for your good, never to your detriment.
It’s time to strengthen your resolve. Choose one hard thing today, and make sure you keep choosing it tomorrow, too! It will lengthen your life! Live like an overcomer! For comments or prayer, please contact Dr. Lanier at HopeCommunityChurch.tv.
