Two worthy excerpts from The Roots of Endurance by John Piper:
"There is a mind-set in the prosperous West that we deserve pain-free, trouble-free existence. When life deals us the opposite, we have a right to not only to blame somebody or some system and to feel sorry for ourselves, but also to devote most of our time to coping, so that we have no time or energy left over for serving others.
This mind-set gives a trajectory to life that is almost universal -namely, away from stress and toward comfort and safety and relief. Then within that very natural trajectory some people begin to think of ministry and find ways of serving God inside the boundaries set by the aims of self-protection. Then churches grow up in this mind-set and it never occurs to anyone in such a community of believers that choosing discomfort, stress, and danger might be the right thing -even, the normal, biblical thing- to do.
Later in the book, Piper offers additional observations about our churches, his own tendencies, and the value of imitating people of endurance:
"I need this inspiration [for endurance] from another century, because I know that I am, in great measure, a child of my times. And one of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility. It hangs in the air we breathe. We are easily hurt. We pout and mope easily. We blame easily. We break easily. Our marriages break easily. And our commitment to the church breaks easily. We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition.
A typical emotional response to trouble in the church is to think, 'If that's the way they feel about me, then I'll just find another church.' We see very few healthy, happy examples today whose lives spell out in flesh and blood the rugged words, 'Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds' (James 1:2). When historians list the character traits of America in the last third of the twentieth century, commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve, and perseverance will not be on the list. The list will begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem. It will be followed by the subheadings of self-assertiveness, self-enhancement, and self-realization. And if we think that we are not children of our times, let us simply test ourselves to see how we respond when people reject our ideas or spurn our good efforts or misconstrue our best intentions.
We all need help here. We are surrounded by, and are part of, a society of emotionally fragile quitters. The spirit of the age is too much in us. We need to spend time with the kind of people -whether dead or alive- whose lives prove there is another way to live.
"There is a mind-set in the prosperous West that we deserve pain-free, trouble-free existence. When life deals us the opposite, we have a right to not only to blame somebody or some system and to feel sorry for ourselves, but also to devote most of our time to coping, so that we have no time or energy left over for serving others.
This mind-set gives a trajectory to life that is almost universal -namely, away from stress and toward comfort and safety and relief. Then within that very natural trajectory some people begin to think of ministry and find ways of serving God inside the boundaries set by the aims of self-protection. Then churches grow up in this mind-set and it never occurs to anyone in such a community of believers that choosing discomfort, stress, and danger might be the right thing -even, the normal, biblical thing- to do.
Later in the book, Piper offers additional observations about our churches, his own tendencies, and the value of imitating people of endurance:
"I need this inspiration [for endurance] from another century, because I know that I am, in great measure, a child of my times. And one of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility. It hangs in the air we breathe. We are easily hurt. We pout and mope easily. We blame easily. We break easily. Our marriages break easily. And our commitment to the church breaks easily. We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition.
A typical emotional response to trouble in the church is to think, 'If that's the way they feel about me, then I'll just find another church.' We see very few healthy, happy examples today whose lives spell out in flesh and blood the rugged words, 'Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds' (James 1:2). When historians list the character traits of America in the last third of the twentieth century, commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve, and perseverance will not be on the list. The list will begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem. It will be followed by the subheadings of self-assertiveness, self-enhancement, and self-realization. And if we think that we are not children of our times, let us simply test ourselves to see how we respond when people reject our ideas or spurn our good efforts or misconstrue our best intentions.
We all need help here. We are surrounded by, and are part of, a society of emotionally fragile quitters. The spirit of the age is too much in us. We need to spend time with the kind of people -whether dead or alive- whose lives prove there is another way to live.