My family likes to hike—serious hikes with 50 pounds of gear on our backs and covering several miles before stopping for the day, setting up camp, and cooking our dinner over an open fire.

What I’ve noticed is that the first day on the trail is often quite rough. It is easy to romanticize a long walk in the woods, but when your feet and back are aching from a heavy pack and your water bottle is getting low around mile eight, you start to wonder why in the world you are out in the woods on a hot spring day. 

That’s when it helps to have people around you doing it too. You help each other, lift each other up, offer words of encouragement, sing songs to distract from the bugs and the aches and pains, and help each other with your packs when you take breaks. 

Suddenly, all complaining ceases. Each of my family members is in line, marching together, and we are much tougher than we would be by ourselves.

It’s much easier to do a tough job when we are surrounded by people doing what we’re doing and encouraging us along the way, isn’t it? 

“God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (1 Corinthians 12:24-26).