Pluck Up

Pluck Up

How do you handle the difficulties of day-to-day life? This is a question I have often asked others and it is a question I often ask myself. After all, life does have its difficult moments, and none of us can expect to be completely spared.

There are difficulties that fall upon us that we cannot control. Yet there are also others that come from poor decisions we have made and these are the ones I am speaking about, the ones we have brought upon ourselves.

Some folks get angry, feeling they deserve a life free of difficulties, and struggle to cope when hard times fall upon them. Others take a more pessimistic view, believing they have somehow been assigned to failure, by a divine presence that cares little about them. Still others seek to place the blame on the perceived callousness of their environment or society as a whole.

Today there is little talk of the fall of mankind and the sinfulness that entered the world at that moment and continues today. We are often tempted to blame the difficulties we create by the choices we make on anything or anyone but ourselves, even God himself. It often seems the act of taking responsibility is not a popular course of action to follow. I believe we have all been guilty of this type of thinking at times.

Stepping up, taking responsibility, and acknowledging our failures is always the right way to go. It is a huge part of our maturing process as Christians. It keeps us balanced and on the straight and narrow path. It reminds me of some of my favorite lines in John Bunyan’s classic book, The Pilgrim’s Progress. As Christian begins his climb up the Hill of Difficulty he recites these words to himself,

“The Hill tho’ high, I covet to ascend,

 The difficulty will not me offend;

 For I perceive the way of life lies here:

 Come, pluck up, Heart, let ‘s neither faint nor fear;

 Better, tho’ difficult the right way to go,

 Than wrong, though easy, where the end is wo.

Pluck up and keep moving, it’s always the right way to go.

RefRev