Carpenters know it. So do masons, plumbers, and electricians. There is no "easy" way to build a house! Often, jumping at what looks like a shortcut results in our having to redo the work later—sometimes after several layers of construction have been built on top of the mistake!
What about moral and spiritual growth? Isn't the same thing true? A tendency to grab the easiest option in our daily lives might well be hindering our precious spiritual growth. There is in fact a heaven-sent joy in meeting individual moral challenges head-on that can't be found in any other way. This approach corresponds to the desire to seek a better understanding of our own individual relationship to God. It makes for happy, progressive living. This way is really the easy way!
Conventional thinking makes no provision for spiritual growth. Its thought of what's "easy" and what's "hard" is strictly in terms of material living. Since spiritual growth inevitably exposes the emptiness of materialism, conventional thought questions a life that accepts what appears to be the more difficult and less comfortable.
