"Christianity is not easy !" ?

I came across a blog the other day where a good Christian lady, housewife and mother was writing about temptation. While this is certainly a subject many people are struggling with, and while temptation is one of the things we are taught to pray about by Christ Himself (Mat 6:13), I was struck by one sentence in the article that made me stop and wonder.

After a general introduction into the subject, the lady said that she certainly had to struggle with things and still was, and she concluded that "Christianity is not easy", putting special emphasis on the "not" as if she had been "accused" before of having chosen a religion that was easy. She is not the first one to say so and will certainly not be the last. Search the internet for the phrase "Christianity is not easy" if you want a quick overview of the discussion.

Now, I know I said it before on this blog, but I am not afraid of repeating myself on the important matters: Christ does not only teach us to pray for delivery from evil, but He also promises that His yoke is easy and his burden light, and that we should come to Him, take up His yoke, learn from Him, and find rest for our souls (Mat 11:28-30).

I do have the impression that Christ's words here do not go very well with this good Christian lady's conclusion on the matter of temptation. I guess that, instead of dwelling on temptations or trying to work through them in our own good time and way, it would be much more in accordance with Scripture to simply obey Yahweh's commandments - in other words, take Christ's yoke and learn from Him what it means to be obedient - and if temptations arise, stick with the Law and pray for deliverance from evil, like we are taught.

After all, we are told that His yoke is easy, so how can we as bible believers turn around and claim that Christianity is not easy ? If we fear the Lord and obey His Law Word, He will see to it that our paths are smooth.

"The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway." (Pro 15:19)

Obedience is saying "Yes, right away"

I have been following a discussion online the subject of which I won't disclose because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. What struck me in many, many of the posts made concerning the given topic, though, was that so many women, young and older, keep saying "I have to study this further before I act on the matter" when they find an ordinance in Scripture that sounds uncomfortable to them.

Rather than being on the safe side and obey first, and continuing the process of understanding the ordinance while you are already following, i.e. obeying it, they choose to continue in disobedience until they "understand fully"...

This is not obedience. Obedience does not require that you understand why something is commanded by Yahweh. Just like my 2-year-old: She doesn't understand that running into the street is dangerous, yet she has to obey us when we forbid her to do so. If I waited for her to understand why she shouldn't run into the street, and until then let her do as she pleased, I would end up with a dead child, no doubt. No way !

I wish I could tell all these women all this straight into the face, but I know they will just call me "unloving" and reject the advice, so I use my blog to say it, and hope that whoever is meant to read it, will read it. I guess if people are resistant to Yahweh's commands and his yoke is burdensome for them, then they aren't among those few that are chosen anyway...