Why does the Christian life feel like nothing but struggle with nothing to show for it?

There is a consistent theme with all of that, and it is like the fighter preparing for the match. There's no glory in training. Nobody shows up for that. Nobody shows up to pat him on the back when he's in the gym, when he's sweating, when he's laboring, when he's exhausted, when he's pushing himself and throwing up in a trash can. There's no glory in that. There's no recognition in that. And yet all of the recognition comes on fight night, when everything is revealed. And this, brothers and sisters, is what Christ is talking about. So much of our life is this abundance of difficulties, this abundance of struggle, of striving, of warfare, of training, fighting against our flesh, fighting against despondency, fighting against anxiety, fighting against depression, all these different things, turning our hearts towards Christ, praying more, fasting, all these different things that we are constantly striving to do. And then we look at him and we say, is this the abundance? And it's like, this is spiritual abundance. This is what it looks like. But the glory of all of this struggle, the glory of all the difficulties of our life, is not revealed in our life, or even really in our lifetime. Maybe in small ways here and there we may see things, or we may get a little glimpse or taste of the kingdom of heaven. But we don't live in that state 24-7. Instead we live in the state of abundant struggle, but the glory of which is revealed at our death, either our death or Christ's second coming. That is when it is revealed, then it is shown to us what it was that we were striving for. We don't get that in this lifetime.