This past week I have been thinking a lot about striving. I think it all started with I received my most recent copy of the Christian Book Distributors catalogue. As I looked through the books offered I was struck by how many books there were on how to live the Christian life. There were so many book blurbs that would say how by following the steps outlined in this book would help you feel closer to the Lord or help you overcome a certain addiction or gain a sense of peace and purpose in this crazy world. Oh my!
How many of these books have we all read? I can just look at my bookshelf and quickly see 10 or more. I do not think that the authors of these books are trying to frustrate the believer and I heartily believe that the author’s intention is to bring freedom and joy. I know that they have written these books out of a sincere desire to see people set free. My question is, have these truly worked for me? The answer, is that no they have not. In fact, they have brought frustration and hopelessness so many times.
I have spent so much of my life striving “to be” that I am tired. I have strived to be a person who is selfless, considerate, likeable, and compassionate because my grandmother told me I wasn’t and would never have friends. I have striven to loose weight and be “healthy”. I have striven to be a good wife, a good mother, a good….. I have spent the last 30 years of my life trying to be someone else, someone who is better than ME!
First of all I have come to realize that what my grandmother told me about myself was not true. Those things that I once strived so desperately to create in myself were already there. The Lord created me this way and put those things in me. As for all those other things I worked endlessly to create in my life, well I wanted to have those attributes in me because then I felt that I could be judged OK. If I could create those things in my life then I would be able to hear the Lord say “Well done my good and faithful servant.” That is what I longed to hear Papa God say to me and until those things were changed in me then there was no way I would ever hear Him utter such things. It was up to me to work this out in my life.
I guess one of the verses that really helped me get caught into this cycle was Philippians 2:12 “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;” I felt like Paul was telling me, “Work it out girlfriend!” I tried! I would follow the steps lined out in these books, I would journal about my shortcomings, I would ask people to pray for me, I would memorize and recite certain Scriptures, and I would fast to try to bring about the changes I wanted or thought that I needed to make.
It is interesting that lately I have stopped skimming over verse 13 of this passage. It says, “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Wow, that really is something powerful. It is God who works in me both to want to do what He wants and to cause me to do what he wants. He will do all this in me-that is so freeing! I think of in Hebrews when it says Jesus will write His words on our hearts and put them in our minds. He also has given us all we need for life and godliness. That once I understood that it is God working in me to will and do His good pleasure and that these other verses started making a lot of sense.
I feel like that in the last six months I have had a much lighter heart and a freedom and I have seen some pretty awesome changes in myself. First, I have stopped focusing on how I have failed God. In those areas where I have struggled I have switched my focus onto who God is and that He has given me to live. The more I focus on the character of God, on who Jesus is in the fulfilling the law and thanking on the punishment of all sin, that He conquered that punishment through His resurrection, that I am a co-heir with Him, that I have the mind of Christ, that He has given me all I need for life and godliness, and the list can go on. I see the pull of my weakness lessen and my struggle diminish.
