I was once at a cottage for a men’s retreat and decided to join some friends as they explored a nearby river. We piled into a couple of canoes and set off downstream. We barely noticed when the current began to pick up, but eventually realized we were moving much faster than mere paddles could propel us. Soon enough we were heading down a series of rapids. There were no sheer drops, and no sharp rocks lurking beneath the surface, so we were in no danger. But slowly the thought dawned on us that our journey home was going to be far more challenging.
Sure enough, when we turned and headed back the way we had come, we had to use all our strength to make even the slightest progress. We were soon laboring and sweating to keep the bows pointed upstream and to keep our canoes moving. Leisure had turned to labor and coasting to straining. We made it eventually, but only at the cost of a lot of effort and a lesson in the power of the river.
You may know from experience that it is easy to take a boat downstream and much harder to take it back up. You certainly know from experience that it is easy to follow sin downstream and much harder to change your course to pursue holiness. As long as you go with the flow of your own desires, the ways of the devil, and the movement of the world around you, life is easy. You can stow your paddle and simply coast. But when you choose to turn toward the Lord, when you decide you will labor toward the Heaven he has secured for us rather than coast to Hell, you quickly learn that you are in for a struggle.
You know from experience that it is easy to follow sin downstream and much harder to change your course to pursue holiness.
In fact, it will prove to be more than a struggle. It will be a hard struggle, a grueling struggle, an exhausting struggle. It will take all your strength and much more than all your strength. The man with the wandering eye does not simply decide one day that he will be pure and find he can do so without challenge. The woman who has always been stingy does not simply exert her will and become generous in a moment. The person who has spent years enjoying sin does not immediately develop a deep and full desire for holiness, however much he or she may wish to. No, it will be difficult to change direction, to put off sin, and to put on righteousness (Ephesians 4:22-24). It will be the work of every moment and the work of an entire lifetime (Philippians 2:12-13).
Thankfully, God does not leave us alone or tell us to make headway by our own effort. Rather, he gives us his people to labor alongside us and his means of grace to equip us. He gives us his Bible to guide us and his Spirit to empower us. He gives us all we need to stop going with the flow and begin the long, difficult, but ever-so-worth-it task of making our way to Heaven. He gives us all we need to change direction and make steady progress. He gives us all we need and instructs us to simply take hold of it—to find that he gives us the strength for every stroke as we make our way home to him.
