Our cultural programming conditions us to value the present over the future so that we constantly sacrifice our future for our present. We're constantly in financial debt, overweight, addicted..
To sacrifice our now for the future is hard, but still doesn't go far enough.

The biblical story calls us to sacrifice some of our now and our future for an even further future that we will likely never see in our lifetime.

To be faithful in exile for a Zion your great-grandchildren may enter into.

To build a cathedral that you will never see completed.

To take up a cross for the resurrection and the final vindication of God.

This way is narrow.