Over the years I have caught myself trying to use my faith to find an easy way around hard work. The older I get the more I am convinced that faith leads me to be persevering more than it helps me skip or avoid hard, difficult places. I thought faith would preempt things like diabetes and it was a wake up call when it showed up in my body--then I found myself being led, not to pray for healing, but to pray for the resolve to do what I needed to do in order to get it under control (hard).

I think this is true in relationships/work/career decisions/et.al. Faith empowers us to handle hard more than it eliminates it. Texts like this one in Ecclesiastes 11:6 illustrate this point: "In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good." Faith keeps you moving, trusting God will evidence fruit, it does not protect you from unnecessary work by showing you where the harvest is first.