If you’re life was on netflix would we watch? If you were scrolling over the new releases would you click on your story? In the first 10 minutes of a film, a problem is introduced. Imagine the opening scene, the lead character finds his girlfriend cheated on him. You’re intrigued. “What’s going to happen next?” If the following 85 minutes was him in his sweatpants mumbling “that *&%$# broke my heart,” you’d be slapping menu on the apple remote ASAP. That’s a terrible story. But most of us live like this. The problem, becomes our beginning, middle and end to our story, and it’s tragic. Not good tragic like Macbeth, but tragically boring. The stuff worth watching is what you do next with the problem. What happens next is what we makes us Indiana Jones or a nameless extra.
We love movies because they make us feel things. We want to believe love can be true, adventure available, and battles worth fighting. But real life? Love seems like a trick, trust a certain trap and empathy for saps. There’s Jason Isbell song called Speed Trap Town. In a line about a high school football game, he describes it a boys last dream and a man’s first loss. As the L’s pile up, men learn at an early age it’s safer to avoid effort than feel failure. It’s the story of the bored and purposeless American.
Life worth watching comes with the acceptance of a few certainties. Heartache is imminent, effort essential and struggle, the tie that binds our hearts together. Your going to get punched in the face, multiple times: don’t excuse yourself from the fight. People will burn you, let you down, lie to your face. Don’t count your self absent from love. Your life experience depends on it. You can point out all the wrongs done to you, and you’d be right. And you’d be miserable.
Christians love to refer to the Bible’s promise of abundant life to validate our desire for a new Chevy Tahoe. What if He meant life is rich, not “I’ll make you rich.” Rich in the way of epic victory, devastating loss, deep friendship, wild places and extraordinary struggle. Maybe abundant life is the collection of stories worth telling at our funeral. Stories we can only write at the risk of getting hurt. Nobody wants to watch a safety instruction video at work. No one wants to hear about how you avoided all hardship and made things really convenient for yourself. One of my greatest memories as a coach was a loss. I was with the Cincinnati Bengals, it was a playoff game with bitter rival the Pittsburgh Steelers. We had the game in hand, I shook hands with soon to be Broncos Head Coach Vance Joseph congratulating him. Then we fumbled, spectacularly unraveled and let the game slip away. The moment was agonizing, brutal and beautiful. Beautiful because we all were forever linked because of what we experienced together. All of us closer, brothers in struggle. Big moments have potential for big pain, but that’s where all the good living hides.
Struggle Well Friends