Try Harder?

Try Harder?

“Peace be with you,” [Jesus] said. . . . They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

John 20:19-22

Imagine that you are at the starting line of a race. You have been training for months. You’ve competed on this track before, but today you are determined to win. As soon as the starting gun goes off, you break out in a burst of speed. Amazingly, you keep it up, rounding the track twice and then heading across the finish line. But guess what? Despite your heroic efforts, and the fact that this was your best time yet, you lose again. It isn’t for lack of trying. Your problem is that you aren’t properly equipped to win a race against a Porsche!

That’s only a rough analogy to highlight the fact that merely trying hard won’t win the race when it comes to living our lives as Christians. Even though many of us are working very hard at it, we rarely, if ever, experience the joy and peace that are promised in the Bible. So what’s the problem?

Perhaps we are still holding the reins of our lives too tightly, afraid to surrender ourselves to God’s Spirit. Pastor Jim Cymbala points out that “the irony of Spirit-filled living is that we have to give up power in order to gain a greater power. How many times in your Christian walk,” he asks, “have you come to a place where you struggled to do something, so you just tried harder? . . . How did that work out for you? Trying harder has never gone well for me.

“Christianity is not a self-effort religion but rather one of power—the ability and might of the Spirit. . . . The Spirit is the only one who can produce self-discipline, love, and boldness. But to do so, he has to control us daily.”^a

Join me today in forsaking the temptation to retain control of your life. Together, let us ask for the grace to surrender more fully to the Holy Spirit, allowing God to guide and energize our lives with the power that comes from him.

Father, you know how afraid I am of letting go, even into your good hands. Please help me to surrender myself to you daily, confident that your Spirit, who lives in me, is more than able to do the things I can’t.

^a Jim Cymbala, Spirit Rising (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 43.