29 years ago this week I and 100+ other boys went out for the freshman football team at Horizon High School. The coach said on day one that he wasn't going to cut anyone and he was true to his word. Yet, when the season started we had a team of 50. The reason was "hell week." That whole season was a struggle leading to more defections and my own weekly temptation to just quit.
Struggle is a part of life. An athlete struggles to train and prepare to win a contest and a business struggles to earn customer trust and market share. A church struggles to impact people's lives and meet expectations. A marriage struggles to endure the trials and remain fulfilling. I could go on with examples, but the point is that any goal oriented person or organization is going to struggle as long as they have a vision for more.
The past 5 years I've been struggling with how to be an effective leader without the benefit of the resources and momentum that I've always had in the past. I already know I can lead when I have a pool of capable and mature people from which to recruit leaders and money to hire staff and create programs and facilities for meetings and events. I've done it at 3 different churches. However, I've never been in this situation before. My options are to "struggle" by faith toward the vision God has given me or to quit in the middle of "hell week."
The mistake I see so many people make is that they quit in order to escape "struggle." God's alternative to quitting is called Sabbath. The biblical principle of Sabbath requires a regular temporary rest from our struggles. So, we should structure our schedules and demonstrate trust in God by taking periods of diversion, rest, and reflection. But otherwise we're called as children of God to accept and even embrace struggle. It may not be the struggle you expected, wanted, or chose, but because of the curse of sin, until we're in heaven we'll always face internal and external struggles.
If you need help embracing your struggles I recommend a study of Paul's "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor 12:7.)
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