Struggle Well by Tristan Bradshaw on TJ Collins
Struggle –
verb
1. make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restraint or constriction
noun
a forceful or violent effort to get free of restraint or resist attack
Struggle Well is a concept first expressed by Matt Chandler in a sermon in 2009. Tristan Bradshaw, a friend and brother at the Village Church, was the first to bear the mark. He began a chain of friends who share the same conceptualization of the tattoo (a dagger through a skull and/or snake), all brothers who actively pursue an effort to struggle well. Struggle Well is also the name of the recently released album by Mouth of the South (Facedown Records).
Struggle Well by Steven Byrne on Tristan Bradshaw
To struggle well means to make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restrain or constriction. To endure suffering, trial, temptation, repentance, doubt, the dessert, and seasons of disobedience. When you follow Jesus, it cannot be done alone.
One of our pastors, Lan Levell, said this the other day. He said if we are to claim that all we need is to listen to the Lord ourselves and no one else, that it was clear evidence that we were not in biblical community. To add my own conjecture, to live not in biblical community is to be living in rebellion of the Lord. To not live in community is to live in disobedience. Maybe you are fine in your walk, and you do not struggle with x, y or z. There are others out there in your community who do. They need your help. Being apart of a collective church body is not about you being spiritually fed, how selfish is that? Being apart of a collective church community is about loving and serving your brothers and sisters. Worshiping along side of them and encouraging them changes something inside of you. We never see Jesus in the scriptures going to a different synagogue because he isn’t being spiritually fed. He goes and is apart of a community to love, heal the sick, encourage.
Struggle Well by Tristan Bradshaw on Jesse Chaney
We see how important this is in Paul’s writing to the church at Philippi. Paul speaks about how he has learned to struggle well in the darkest hour of the night and the brightest dawn of the morning. He has learned to struggle well in any situation because it is Christ who gives him the endurance and contentment. He then goes on to express his jubilant gratitude to the church at Philippi for walking with him through thick and thin (Phil 4:10-20).
Paul later refers to struggling well in his letter to the church in Corinth and to Timothy, a dear friend of his and elder at the church in Ephesus. In both letters he allegorically describes walking with Christ, pursuing obedience, as a race (1 Cor 9:24, 2 Tim 4:7). Fighting the good fight.
Why?
Our position under Christ is not defined by our struggles.
Christ died for you to be free. Eternally. That word is not solely in reference to the afterlife, but the quality of current freedom. Freedom eternal. Life abundantly. No longer bound by the weight and chains of sin. This is no easy task, and I have my own issues I wrestle with on a daily basis. Which is why we need community and we need Jesus. We can’t do this on our own. We can struggle alone, but we cannot struggle well. There will be no victory over our own trials without the power of God manifesting himself in our lives. Sometimes he will put us in rough situations where we just have to submit and suffer. What we learn in those times though is that perceived suffering is really for God’s glory and ultimately our own joy.
Struggle Well by Tristan Bradshaw on Tyler Collins
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-11
We have to submit to the Lord to be free. We have to die to ourselves to truly live. It’s paradoxical almost. There is an old proverb that says once you find something worth dying for, then and only then are you able to truly live.
If God is sovereign, and he is, it means he has total control of the situation. To quote Hector from NTB, “your situation was dealt with on the cross.” Whatever season you’re walking in right now, it isn’t as if the Lord is surprised you are being disobedient, or obedient. He has his hands around you and is guiding this portion of your life. Regardless if it’s a tolling, lonely walk through the desert or a joyous mountain experience. He has total control of the situation and what comfort is that? To know that even in our darkest hour, we aren’t alone. Despite how often we bite the hand that feeds us, and spit in his face by saying, “you aren’t enough.”
“Despite everything you’ve done, I will still be here for you.”
Struggle Well by Tristan Bradshaw on Michael “Butz” Butler of MOTS
So my plead to you, my brothers and sisters, is to struggle well in this season of your life, and the next, and the next. Never give up the fight. When you get struck down, or your hand slips and you fall (and you will), to pick yourself back up and press on. You will be criticized by those who are still laying in defeat. The real victory isn’t winning the race, the real victory is finishing it, whether on a sprint with everything you have or crawling on your hands and knees.
Never give up.
Struggle well.
Struggle Well by Tristan Bradshaw on Josef Kainrad
-J
Follow me on instagram @texasfornever.
