I won't rot in idleness

I want to be the kind of person who doesn’t shy away from what’s hard, but instead seeks it out on purpose. The kind of person who has the discipline to rise before the sun and take on challenges, not just for the reward, but because the difficulty itself is valuable. There’s something beautiful about doing what’s hardest because it’s hard. There’s a clarity in that kind of struggle, in going to the extreme, in pushing yourself against the limits of what you think you can handle.

This is something I learned while hiking in Utah. Fourteen miles of steep terrain. Bone-deep exhaustion setting in. The 5:00am cold air filling my lungs, then sweating under the heat of a rising sun later in the day. I realized, there and then, that the heat itself wasn’t bad or good. It was just heat. The terrain wasn’t bad or good. It just was. What mattered was how I chose to react to it—how I let it shape me. It was one of the first times I stopped feeling cramped in my own skin. The pain, the strain in my lungs, the effort it took to move forward—all of it cleared space in my head to finally think.

I feel that same way when I imagine people climbing the world’s hardest mountains. Once, I saw an image of a man on K2, the second-deadliest peak on Earth.

The caption said, simply, “Climbing K2 will fix me.”

It hit me deeply. I know that feeling of wanting something so extreme, so challenging, not because it’s easy, but because it strips everything unnecessary away. It gets rid of the noise, the clutter, the distractions and leaves you raw. I’ve felt that rage inside me too—a need to push, to go harder, to feel everything in my body and mind firing at once. It’s about being alive in the truest sense. Savagely, viscerally, uncomfortably alive.

I think about what it would be like to tear against the most punishing terrain. The blood in my throat. Every fiber of muscle burning but still pushing. My lungs straining for oxygen while my brain calmly tells my body to keep going. Every step feels impossible, but I keep moving forward, even if all I can do is crawl. When I’m moving like that—in that kind of pain and clarity—I find that I’m closer to God than at any other moment. When there’s nothing left in me but exhaustion, I feel his presence. My body breaks down, but my soul feels its way back to him.

That’s all I want for my life. To bring this broken temple of a body to its limits, to push myself to the edge of collapse. I know what I’m made for. I’m not here to chase comfort or let my soul rot in idleness. This life is about worship and building. To do anything less is to wither away—spiritually, mentally, physically. It’s a slow death that I refuse to let take hold of me.

I’m here to be a tool in God’s hands. I am deeply flawed, deeply evil at my core, and yet he chooses me. Again and again, he chooses to use me for his purpose. Even in exhaustion, even when I have nothing left, I trust that his will is being worked out through me. My goal, my only real mission, is to carry his justice into every dark place I walk into. He is good. He is love. He is just. And I know I’m none of those things on my own, but it doesn’t matter. He is good enough, and he’s chosen to use me anyway.

I will push. For the sake of my body, my mind, and my faith, I will push. To live a life of comfort is to choose death, but to live a life of work—even brutal, punishing, tiring work—is to find purpose. There is nothing else for me but to worship and to build. Anything outside of that is decay.

This is the life I want, and I won’t let anything hold me back from it.