The answer is that there is nothing wrong with easy. It's just that easy limits what we can gain. When we approach a task or challenge that anyone can easily do, two things occur to us.
1. Why am I doing this at all? Does it need to be done? Why is it my job? It's not that a task is beneath us, but if anyone can do it, there is nothing special about being the one who does it.
2. How embarrassing will it be if I mess this up. If you want some examples of this, try googling "you had one job" and see the collection of mess ups on mundane tasks.
We see the same thing in the world of sports. Sometimes a big athletic powerhouse plays the little school from nowhere. The big school really can't win. If they win by a little, everyone will say that they should have won by more. If they win by a lot, then they are jerks for running up the score. And if they actually lose the game?
In athletics we know to set goals and face the tough competition. We want the experience to bring out the best in us, not the minimal to get by.
When John Kennedy laid out a vision for going to the Moon, he said, "Not because it is easy, but because it is hard." He laid out a challenge for a country that would rise to its best to fulfill. He new that it wasn't a question of easy, he was calling on a great country to do great things. And the goal wasn't reached by accident. It required deliberate extraordinary efforts to pull it off.
The same is true with God's call to us to love one another. It is easy to love those who love us back, but that's not what God calls us to do. He calls us to love those that are hard to love, because it is hard. Because that way, God's love can be seen through us.
Everyone loves those who love them back. The challenge is demonstrating love to people who are disagreeable or even hostile. That is the challenge and it is by no means easy. Like the Moon landing it takes sustained, deliberate extraordinary effort, but it is our calling and it is worth it.
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