Newton's Third Law for Christians...

I once read a story about a college freshman who was struggling in class and her mom finally convinced her that she should study. When she came back from the test, her mom asked how it went. She laughed and said, “It was so easy, I’ll never waste my time studying again!”

I think that’s just like me sometimes. When things are hard, I moan and complain. When God gives me the ‘answers’, I sit back and get cocky, feeling like things are easy.

Our transition here to Malawi has felt “easy” overall, but when I really consider the last few months what I see most of all is God’s grace. It has felt easy, but not because it was simple in human terms! The good-byes, the 36-hour plane trip, the shock of driving, shopping, and cooking in Africa, 40/40 challenges, the robbery, language headaches, the loss of status I’ve felt in leaving the professional world…when I look at each thing we’ve come through, I’m amazed. And yet, in all honesty, my overall feeling is that it’s been remarkably easy. So why the discrepancy? I’m convinced that what I’m seeing and experiencing more than ever before is God’s grace. That each challenge, and each difficulty, and each bad day is met by an equal and opposite dose of grace so that at the end of the week, I can look back and feel like things aren’t so hard after all.

The danger is in getting comfortable, thinking the ‘ease’ of life is due to some personal strength, or my experience as a missionary-kid, or the inherent simplicity of life uncluttered, when really it’s God’s faithfulness extended to us over and over again.

So next time I encounter a ‘test’, I hope I can come out the other side saying, “That was so easy, I’ll never waste my time trying to do it on my own again!”