Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4
Do you know what you want?
What’s your ambition?
I could point toward any major character and say exactly what that person wanted. No character had a vague ambition.
It made me wonder if the reasons our lives seem so muddled is because we keep walking into scenes in which we, along with the people around us, have no clear idea what we want.
~ Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
I want purpose. I want peace. I want joy. I want love. I want faith. I want hope.
I want God.
To get from here to there—to what you want—you walk through story. But if the walk is too easy, your story reads slow. You grow tired of reading it even yourself.
But the people who took the bus didn’t experience the city as we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful.
The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way.
There’s something about challenge, about pain, that makes your story more meaningful, more interesting, more gratifying. It makes your story worthwhile.
I don’t know why it’s that way—and I don’t like that it’s that way, but I know it is.
Don’t intentionally seek out pain. But if it’s the only thing blocking you from what God wants for you, don’t run away from the pain either.
Trust God to not let it get unbearable (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Do you want what you want or don’t you?
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What it is you want? Is pain involved?
