On doing hard things

Most of the time, joy is the best clue to what it is that we should really be doing in this life. The things that spark us are evidence of our core purpose.

However, all of us go through periods where we have to do really hard things. 

I recently read Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He shares how he basically got up off the couch and decided to ride with a team from the West Coast to the East Coast—on a bicycle—having never done it before.  

It was hard. 

I loved what he wrote about choosing to stay with the difficulty and not quit: We were becoming people of will and resolve. 

That sentence has played in my brain for the past several weeks. 

Sometimes we have to choose to do hard things simply to add enough fire to keep us growing into the people we want to become. Other times hard things are put on us without choice. 

I'm not sure why the hard things are required, but they always are. I'm reminded of a scene from the life of Jesus where a rich young man comes to ask what more he needs to do to be part of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus asks for the one thing the young man was unwilling to give. He tells him to sell all he has and give it to the poor. The author writes that the young man walked away...sad.  He couldn't do it. 

I want to be one who can do the hard things. I want to be a person of will and resolve.