"For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."  Matthew 7:14 I don’t know about you, but my human nature doesn’t like hard things.  It would much rather have things easy.  It has a tendency to avoid anything and everything that might be difficult or hard.   That way of thinking is a product of our Western culture and it is destroying Christianity.  It is contrary to  the Way that God has called His followers to. The farther we travel on this journey, the more we recognize that the easy road and the comfortable place is not where we grow, either.  Note the words of Jesus to Martha after her brother, Lazarus' death in John 11:25-27,  "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?'  She said to him, 'Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ,...