Why Christians Should Be Willing to Do Hard Things
A life built only around comfort will eventually become smaller than the life God is calling you to live.
The phrase “Do Hard Things” challenges a cultural assumption that the best life is the easiest life. Scripture tells a different story. Again and again, meaningful obedience requires courage, sacrifice, endurance, and effort.
The goal is not to hunt for pain. It is to stop using discomfort as an automatic reason to avoid something good.
Step outside your comfort zone
If every choice stays inside the boundaries of what already feels easy, growth will eventually stop. Difficult tasks expose weakness, force learning, and stretch capacity.
Hebrews 11 is filled with people whose faith became visible precisely because obedience was difficult.
Do more than the minimum expected
The Macedonian Christians in 2 Corinthians 8 gave beyond expectation because they first gave themselves to the Lord.
Low expectations can quietly become a ceiling. Christians are capable of surprising faithfulness when they stop asking only, “What is required?” and begin asking, “What can love and devotion produce?”
Use the strength of partnership
Exodus 18 shows Moses learning that he should not carry every burden alone. Some hard things become wise only when responsibility is shared.
Teamwork is not weakness. It is often the way God enables people to carry more without being crushed by the load.
Build for a future you cannot see yet
Hard things often have delayed rewards. Training, study, parenting, generosity, spiritual disciplines, and difficult conversations may not pay off immediately.
Faith thinks farther ahead. It values what an action is building, not merely how it feels today.
Be willing to look different
Jesus described His people as light. If faithfulness never makes us distinct from the surrounding culture, something may be wrong.
Do the hard thing because it is right, useful, loving, and faithful—not because difficulty itself is virtuous, but because comfort should never become your master.
A wonderful day does not have to be an easy day.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What good thing am I avoiding mainly because it feels uncomfortable?
- 02Where have I allowed other people’s low expectations to become my ceiling?
- 03Who could help me carry a hard responsibility more wisely?
Listen to the original episode
This article was adapted from Episode 26 · Do Hard Things. Continue with the podcast for the original teaching in Kris’s voice.
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