Ron Aulbach

I keep seeing this term that guarantees an easy life.  #Hack your way to better health, climbing the corporate ladder, and making quick money.  These #lifehackers have websites devoted to their area of expertise and the tribe prides itself on trading their secrets to gain followers.  But, what if the easiest way wasn’t the best way and the best way wasn’t even the point.

What is this strange term, #lifehack?  Urban Dictionary: “A tool or technique that makes some aspect of one’s life easier or more efficient.”  The concept is well intended.  Trade a few tips and improve some aspect of your life.  I’m not against that, and frankly I need all the help I can get.

But, what happened to the old fashioned notion of hard work? The feeling of exhaustion after trying and failing 10 times knowing that you gave it your all?  What if the tip actually eliminated the greater lesson of perseverance?  And the kicker, what if the whole point isn’t even to make life easier, but to learn to live fearless and with the inevitable possibility of failure.

I’m watching The Masters and I don’t see a lot of short cuts around Augusta.  Guys like Fred Couples seem to stick around despite their age.  And, it’s not because he picked up a bunch of #lifehacks in the clubhouse from the young guns.  Experience is his guide, hard work is his path.  Freddie is far from a #hack in more ways then one.  He probably won’t win, but it won’t be because he didn’t perfect the right #hack.  And maybe winning isn’t even the point.

Maybe I’m being too hard on the #lifehackers. I’m probably a hypocrite as I’ll scour the web for tips on training, nutrition, or my responsibilities as a pastor.  But, is that the best use of my time?  What if the time I used to find an edge or quick fix, I put that energy into another training session or laughed with my kids.  What if I wrote my sermons over and over, simply for the joy of typing God’s thoughts with mine?  A great sermon (or sunday school lesson, or devotional, or 10 minutes with G0d) is about the process endured not the finished product created.

There are no shortcuts in life.  I looked all through the Bible to find that verse guaranteeing the easy life.  I couldn’t find a parable where Jesus gave any #lifehacks.  The apostles don’t mention how they #hacked their way to persecution.  No shortcuts to a new church.  Instead there is this theme of work. Hard work that spends itself, and over the long haul produces a body of work.  A work that is worthy, because it’s  working for a greater purpose beyond this life.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” Colossians 3:23