Falling is easier than rising. - Glenn Conjurske

Falling is easier than rising.

A great deal easier, and this is surely true in the moral and spiritual realms as well as the physical. It is always easier to fall into sin than it is to get up again.

Gravity is a very strong force, and in constant operation, always to be reckoned with, never to be ignored. Yet God might have created the earth with no more gravitational pull than the moon, making it much less easy to fall, and much more easy to get up again. He might have created it with no gravity at all, making a fall impossible, and making it effortless to rise. But we suppose that God has designed the law of gravity as it is to teach us that down is always a great deal easier than up.

It is easy to take a false step, but what deep searchings of heart, what bitter tears, what humbling confessions, what embarrassing restitutions, what soul-wrenching retracing of our steps, may be required of us to get right again. It was easy for the prodigal son to leave home. It was all pleasure to go his merry way, with a spring in his step, fond dreams in his heart, glib songs on his lips, and a plentitude of money in his pockets. But what another matter it was to return home, stomach and pockets empty, clothes ragged, discouraged and friendless, dragging his weary feet. He went out expecting a higher place than his father’s house had given him. He comes back hoping for a lower place than he had left, and with no certainty that he would be given even that. Surely falling was easy, rising hard.

So it is with every departure from God. The steps which we take away from him are easy, while those by which we must return to him are hard. Yet men fail to consider that every step which they take with pleasure away from God they must one day retrace with pain and sorrow, precisely as the prodigal son did. We must one day struggle up-hill over every inch of the ground which we have so lightly traversed down-hill.

It is easy to yield to every lust of the flesh, down hill all the way, and full of pleasure, but unless we are to be lost in the far country, we must one day retrace our steps, and this will be with great difficulty. It is easy to fall into sin, easy to yield to the lusts of the flesh, and most of us have been so foolish as to suppose that it would be as easy to rise again as it was to fall, and the one-sided grace theology of our pastors and teachers may have confirmed us in that foolish belief. We find it otherwise, however, when we think to rise. The man who walks the down-grade of drinking or gambling will claim that he can quit any time he pleases, but he soon finds that he cannot please to quit, and if the inner man desires it, still the flesh will serve the law of sin. He finds himself fast bound in the chains of his own making. It was all ease and all pleasure to forge those chains, but it is all pain and labor to break them.

But there is yet more. Many find it easy to fall, who find it quite impossible to rise again. Adam could lose Paradise in one easy moment of pleasurable indulgence, but he could not regain it in a life-time of trying. It was easy for Joshua to make a league with the Gibeonites, but he could not extricate himself from it when it was made. It is all pleasure for foolish young people to go to the marriage altar, but they cannot undo the knot which they have tied. It was all pleasure for Leah to supplant her sister in the marriage bed, but what a life of sorrow she must endure for it. It is easy for the fox to put his foot in the trap, but impossible to get it out.

Falling is easy. Rising is hard. It is God who has made it so, for God will not be mocked. Let men consider these things well, and be careful how they fall.

But there is yet more. If falling is easier than rising, it is also easier than standing. It is easier to fall into sin than to stand against it. Indeed, it may be very easy to fall, and very hard to stand. Temptations are strong. Sin is pleasurable. Curiosity invites. It is hard to stand, easy to fall. We all, therefore, have a strong propensity to fall. We ought to bear in mind, therefore, that however difficult it may be to stand, and not fall, it is much more difficult to rise, after we have fallen, and many who fall will never rise again at all. “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Standing is harder than falling, but surely easier than rising. “Stand therefore.”

Glenn Conjurske