Lambak (ลำบาก)

 
For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7:14 (ESV)
 
เพราะประตูที่แคบและทางที่ลำบากนั้นนำไปสู่ชีวิต และพวกที่หาพบก็มีน้อย (มัทธิว 7:14)
 
One of the nice things about learning a new language is that as you read the Bible in that language you find they will use words the bring up different connotations in your head.

Matthew 7:14 is one of those verses that I got a whole new picture of as I read it in Thai.  The word translated hard in English is translated lambak in Thai.  When I use the word lambak, the picture I often get in my brain is that of the walking portion of my commute to school.

Walking in Bangkok can be a bit dangerous/hazardous.  One book I read written for foreigners moving to Thailand recommended that foreigners not even attempt to get around Bangkok by walking. And if there are any hazards in walking in Bangkok I encounter them on my walk down Rang Nam Avenue each day:

• missing paving stones
• tilted paving stones (trip hazards)
• trees/poles/steel cables sticking out of the side walk
• manure  of various kinds
• motorcycles/cars driving/parked on the sidewalks
• restaurants on the sidewalks, narrowing the walkway to one person wide that is occupied by the person serving or people eating
• gas or charcoal grills
• pots of hot cooking oil
• awnings or umbrellas lower than head height
• people with umbrellas with the wires right at eye level
• people walking, not watching where they are going
• crowds of people, not moving, blocking the sidewalk
• wet/slippery spots
• drain pipes that drain water into the middle of the sidewalk
• uneven pavement
• vendors selling lottery tickets out of wooden trays protruding into the walkway
• people selling all manner of whatever
• beggars
• holes that open to the sewer
• hole that seem to have no apparent bottom
• people selling “services”

There may be more, but you get the picture.  Difficult.  Hard.  Lambak.  No wonder the author of the book recommended taking a taxi (is that safer if the driver is on meth?) or having your own car with a hired driver (who you can at least screen for drug use).  I will often walk in the street, which is also dangerous, but at least I can get to my destination.

If you want to walk on the sidewalks of Bangkok, you need determination and you have to really pay attention, or you will end up waylaid, injured or perhaps dead.

Jesus says that the way that leads to life is hard.  There are difficulties and distractions along the way. No wonder he says so few will make it.

But there is hope in this as well.  Even though there will be difficulties and hardships in the Christian life (they seem to be guaranteed), if we endure the difficulties and don’t get sidetracked by the temptations, we can make it to an infinitely better destination than the one at the end of the wide, easy road. We may be scarred and bruised, but that is no more than Jesus endured to make the way possible for us to have abundant, eternal life.

 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (ESV)
 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10 (ESV)