“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Usually, I would share a quote and pen a meaningful post about the meaning of Rev. King’s legacy to me and this country, but I wanted to do something a bit different. I wanted to take it a step further and contextualize one of my favorite quotes by him. Yes, this quote is about the revelation of one’s character in challenge, but I think it could also be extrapolated to our perception of challenges themselves. We don’t always welcome them; we aren’t excited by them, but these words suggest something imperative about them and that’s where my interest lies. I’ve seen jokes on social media about not getting the “strongest soldiers” package and we’ve even bought into the worldly notion of a “soft life,” a life with little stress and more ease. We want comfort and convenience without challenges, which, if we think about it, doesn’t really teach us anything about ourselves. Easy times are not revelatory moments in our lives; it’s actually in those times we tend to forget about God when He is the reason we made it through.
I’m thinking also of a speech Denzel Washington gave at a commencement ceremony where he said, “Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship.” We so badly want to get out of the difficulty when that is where the learning happens – the learning about yourself, about what God wants from you, and how to bridge the gap.
It’s where the work begins and I am speaking from personal experience because I find myself in a challenging state of life right now. I have more questions than answers, but I’ve been here before so my questions are different than the first time. Initially, my questions, as the world as I knew it crumbled were, as I wept, why is this happening to me? Why did they do this to me? But the answer didn’t come until a year later and as it turned out, nothing was done to me, but something was done for me and it changed my life as I knew it.
Now, with an entirely different challenge in life, my question now is, Lord, what do you want from me? Because as my father has taught me, in the midst of a storm, there is a call. During a storm, Peter is called to walk on water and ultimately, challenged to keep his eyes on Christ and come to Him despite the boisterous winds (Matthew 14:22-33). My point is that there is something to do, something God is rooting out of me or into me, if not both, and as uncertain as everything feels to me right now, especially my future, I know something is being worked out for my benefit, so I have to give myself over to embrace the challenge and not leaning upon my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6).
I’d also like to remind us that whether or not we are Christians, we will still experience difficulty; we are not insulated from it as humans anyway but we have something the world doesn’t have – a living Savior who invites us to seek Him.
He doesn’t get us out of difficulty, He gets us through it if we seek Him. We think we want to get out of it, but getting us through it gives us a testimony, a witness that encourages the people around us. Let’s see what the Word says about enduring:
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” – James 1:2-4
“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” – Psalm 27:14 (Notice, wait is written twice.)
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” – Psalm 46:1
“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; That I might learn thy statutes.” – Psalm 119:71
A common mistake when it comes to experiencing difficulty and our perception of it is linking it to God’s goodness and His love for us. Meaning we perceive God’s goodness and His love to be contingent upon what we are going through. As if to say, if God loves me, I wouldn’t be experiencing difficulty or life would be easier. If that’s where you’re at, I know someone we all know who will combat your argument completely: Jesus, who we seek to emulate, so this works out perfectly. A scripture we all know well is this:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” – John 3:16 KJV
God loves Christ who the scripture reminds us was His Only Son and yet, He was born to be sacrificed for our sins. God has denied us nothing, including His Son and if that is not evidence of his enduring goodness, I don’t know what is. We are loved beyond measure and even when we don’t know why a trial has presented itself, surely, we can trust the God who has ordained it, who makes all things that work together for good for those that love Him (Romans 8:28). Christ overcame the world and sin itself and not only do we have the same power in us that raised Him from the dead, but we also have victory because the tomb is empty and He sits on the right hand of God and intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). His endurance, the Grace He extended unto others and commitment to His assignment, which was unto death, lays the foundation for how we too can overcome!
The legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is not without its challenges and the deliberate choice to persist in faith. I don’t know if he knew ease and I’m not suggesting that life is meant to be arduous and oppressive every day of the week, but challenge isn’t our enemy either. We have to get to a place where our faith is immovable and we trust that God is at work as we endure. Because when we do, like Peter, we will be able to walk on water regardless of what is happening in the background and keep our eyes ever stayed on Him, and not our circumstances. In return, we don’t get a “soft life” or worldly ease, we get something far better: a peace that surpasseth all understanding, which transcends the earthly plain. We bury that former person a little deeper, and in exchange, we press further toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14).
