The Mercy of the Hard Way
If I’m honest, there have been moments in my life where everything came down to put up or shut up. Not dramatic in appearance, but real in weight. The pain was unmistakable. It hurt—deeply. I’ve often wondered what a heart monitor would’ve shown in those moments of truth. Whatever the numbers were, the anxiety had climbed past anything I could put words to.
What’s wild is this: those moments were self-induced. Completely avoidable. My alcoholism wasn’t born from chaos outside of me—it came from my need to control how I felt. I wanted relief. Escape. Numbness. Looking back, what I really wanted was comfort, and drinking felt like the shortcut—the easy way out.
Avoiding reality became a game I played for a while… until it ran its course, straight into the reef of life. I ran this way, then that way. Told this lie, justified that one. I pushed and pushed until—bam—I was trapped. And suddenly there were only two choices: keep sinking, or turn around and walk back the hard way. The right way. A way that carried its own kind of pain.
My grand sponsor has a saying I’ve never forgotten:
“Forty miles in is forty miles out.”
Whatever distance you travel into destruction is the same distance required to return.
Not long before my breaking point, I read The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday, rooted in Stoic thought. The premise is simple and brutal: the very thing you’re avoiding is the path forward. The fear. The discomfort. The right thing you don’t want to do. That truth hit me square in the chest—because I knew it was aimed right at me.
Even today, I can still feel the pull of the easier road. I touch it. I consider it. The softer, gentler way still whispers. There’s a Morgan Wallen song, “Don’t Think Jesus,” that nails this tension perfectly. It’s about taking the wrong road and realizing—too late—where it leads. One line cuts especially deep:
“I wish you would’ve woke me up an easier way,
But I don’t think Jesus does it that way.”
Sometimes—plainly—we need our ass kicked by reality to pull us back from the slow ravages of comfort. Grace doesn’t always come softly. Sometimes it shows up as consequence. As exposure. As the mercy of being stopped before we destroy ourselves completely.
“There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”
— Proverbs 14:12
“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
— Hebrews 12:11
“Consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
— James 1:2–3
“Then He said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’”
— Luke 9:23
Closing Prayer
Lord,
I confess how often I reach for comfort instead of truth, ease instead of obedience. Thank You for loving me enough not to leave me there. Even when the lesson is painful, even when the road back is long, I trust that Your correction is mercy. Give me the courage to face what I’ve avoided, the humility to walk the hard way, and the faith to believe that You are shaping me through it all. Lead me—not around the obstacle—but through it.
Amen.
