Embracing the spirituality of struggle
Numbers 21:4B-9 With
their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and
Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where
there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” In
punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people
so that many of them died. Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have
sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray the LORD to take the
serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
“Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if any who have been bitten look at
it, they will live.” Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on
a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Several
years ago while watching the T.V. show called “LOST,” I learned the value of
the cross, the “spirituality of struggle,” you might say. Two characters in the
scene are John Locke and Charlie Pace, a recovering drug addict. Locke has been
keeping Charlie’s heroine stash but Charlie wants it back. He can’t stand the
struggle of sobriety. Instead, Locke takes him to a nearby tree, where he shows
him a moth cocoon. He points to the top of the cocoon, and says, “Do you see
this little hole? This moth is just about to emerge. It’s in there right now,
struggling, digging its way through the thick hide of the cocoon.” Locke
continues, “Now, I could help it; get my knife, gently widen the opening and
the moth would be free, but it would be too weak to survive. The struggle is
nature’s way of strengthening it.” In other words, struggle and sacrifice,
adversity and ache are all necessary to grow and fully develop. Without a struggle,
you will only crawl and never be able to fly.
Today we
celebrate the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross, and the Church invites us
to reflect on the spirituality of struggle. In the book of Numbers, the people
wander through the desert, they are exhausted, and they are attacked by
serpents, and they are healed by looking at a bronze serpent on the pole, a
symbol of Jesus. But did God take them out of the desert? Did he stop their
struggle and suffering? No. Like Locke explained to Charlie, “the struggle is
nature’s way of strengthening them,” otherwise, they will be too weak to
survive spiritually. You see, God did not come to save us from our struggles;
he came to save us from our sins: that’s the spirituality of struggle, and why
we exult the Cross.
You have
probably seen that now-famous sign posted at the entrance of Catholic High
School in Little Rock. At the top of the poster is a big, red “Stop” sign.
Below that, it reads: “If you are dropping off your son’s forgotten lunch,
books, homework, equipment, etc. please turn around and exit the building. Your
son will learn to problem solve in your absence.” I love that sign because I
was once one of those boys who learned to problem-solve in high school because
no one “helped” me by opening my cocoon too early. I learned the advantage of
adversity, the spirituality of struggle.
My friends,
we all want to help other people; that’s a very Christian thing to do. But
sometimes helping someone only ends up harming them, when all you do is remove
their struggles. Now, I’m not advocating letting people wallow in their
miseries, but I am suggesting you don’t always run to the rescue. Let people
learn the spirituality of struggle. For instance, help others to problem-solve,
don’t solve their problems for them. Don’t always take your children their
forgotten lunch and books and equipment. Don’t always give someone the answer,
but help them to think deeper about the question. Don’t just pray to God to
make your life easier. God doesn’t want to save you from your struggles, he
wants to save you from your sins, just ask the Israelites in the desert.
If you
“help” a moth by freeing it from its cocoon, all you’ve helped it to do is
crawl for the rest of its life.
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
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