The Best Excuse

I have heard a lot of excuses in my life.

As a parent, I heard excuses for missed curfews and unfinished homework. As a pastor, I’ve heard reasons people couldn’t forgive, couldn’t serve, couldn’t attend, couldn’t change. As someone who spent years in finance, I heard excuses for missed deadlines, poor investments, and broken promises. And if I’m being completely honest, I’ve become something of an expert in creating excuses of my own.

But the best excuse I’ve heard lately wasn’t funny. It wasn’t clever.

It was devastating.

“I just want an easy life.”

At first glance, it sounds reasonable. Who doesn’t want life to be easier? We all want fewer burdens, fewer heartbreaks, fewer sleepless nights. We want our relationships to work, our health to cooperate, our finances to stretch a little farther. There is nothing wrong with longing for peace.

The problem begins when “I want an easy life” becomes the explanation for never attempting anything difficult.

I’ve heard people use it to avoid reconciliation.

“I don’t want the drama.”

To avoid speaking the truth.

“I don’t want the conflict.”

To avoid taking a new opportunity.

“What if I fail?”

To avoid becoming who they were created to be.

“I’m comfortable where I am.”

Those aren’t really different excuses. They’re all translations of the same one.

I just want an easy life.

The irony is that almost everything worthwhile in my own life came through seasons that were anything but easy.

Marriage wasn’t easy.

Raising children wasn’t easy.

Seminary certainly wasn’t easy.

Ministry has never been easy.

Coming out as transgender after decades of hiding wasn’t easy. In many ways, it cost me nearly everything I thought defined my life. It strained relationships, altered my vocation, and forced me to confront fears I had spent decades avoiding.

If my highest priority had been an easy life, I never would have taken that step.

But I also never would have discovered what it feels like to breathe honestly.

Some things cost too much to avoid.

Our culture often sells comfort as the highest good. Every advertisement promises to make life simpler, faster, easier. We are told to avoid discomfort at all costs.

Yet growth has never followed comfort.

Muscles grow because they are stressed.

Relationships deepen because people work through conflict instead of avoiding it.

Faith matures because it survives doubt.

Character forms because hardship refuses to let us remain who we were.

The Bible never promises an easy life. In fact, it promises almost the opposite.

Jesus invited people to take up a cross.

Paul spoke of perseverance producing character and character producing hope.

The prophets challenged kings instead of protecting their own comfort.

The disciples left secure livelihoods to follow an uncertain future.

None of them chose the easy road.

They chose the meaningful one.

I’ve noticed something else.

The people I admire most rarely tell stories about the easiest years of their lives.

They talk about cancer.

They talk about addiction.

They talk about caring for aging parents.

They talk about raising children with disabilities.

They talk about losing jobs, rebuilding marriages, surviving grief, beginning again after failure.

Those chapters were not the ones they wanted.

But they became the chapters that shaped them.

If life were a novel, no one would keep reading if every chapter described people who avoided every challenge. The stories we love are filled with courage precisely because courage requires fear. Redemption matters because suffering came first.

Our lives work much the same way.

Looking back, I wouldn’t erase the hardest moments of my life, even though I never want to relive them. Those experiences stripped away illusions. They exposed my dependence on the approval of others. They taught me that authenticity costs something—but hiding costs even more.

Pain became an unexpected teacher.

Not a teacher I would have chosen.

But a teacher who refused to let me stay the same.

Perhaps that’s why I smile a little now whenever someone says they simply want an easy life.

I understand the desire.

I really do.

There are days when I still wish life had unfolded differently.

But if life had been easier, I doubt I would have become the person I am still trying to become.

Maybe the better question isn’t whether life is easy.

Maybe the better question is whether it’s worth it.

Is this challenge making me more compassionate?

More courageous?

More authentic?

More loving?

Closer to God?

If the answer is yes, then perhaps the hardship is accomplishing something comfort never could.

So the best excuse I’ve heard lately remains, “I just want an easy life.”

It’s believable.

It’s understandable.

It’s even relatable.

But I’ve learned that easy and meaningful are rarely the same destination.

If given the choice between a comfortable life and one that teaches me how to love more deeply, forgive more freely, and live more honestly, I’ll take the harder road every time.

Not because I enjoy suffering.

But because I’ve discovered that the most beautiful parts of my story were written on the pages I once prayed God would tear out.

And I’m grateful God left them in.