Try Harder or Trust More

By Jon Walker..  I stumbled on this devotion today, 11th August 2012 at 11: 20am. This is real. God knows of the countless times I tried so hard to make it work. But with trying HARDER, I am trusting MORE.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” (Matthew 11:28-29a MSG) Most of us would like to live a life of extraordinary quality that is not only fulfilling but also carries significance beyond ourselves. That’s most likely one of the reasons you became a Christian, and it is exactly the kind of life Jesus promises if we will follow him. So why isn’t it happening? Why, instead of the abundant life, do so many of us end up living lives of quiet desperation? We go to church; we read the Bible; we pray; we try to be good people and to serve others. Yet, our life with Jesus doesn’t seem to be much more than an add-on to our increasingly complex lives. So we try harder to live the abundant life. We work harder, pray harder, study harder, and keep trying to figure out what we’re doing wrong. Isn’t that what Jesus wants us to do? All the while, he keeps asking, in a sense, “Are you tired of this yet?” Matthew 11:28-29 says, “Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace” (MSG). Jesus calls us away from the “hows” and “whys” of our lives into the rhythms of his grace, standing before us as the Son of God Incarnate, Jesus, God’s Word in the flesh. The answer to our frustrations is “who,” not “what” or “how.” When we try to relate to Jesus on the level of “what” or “how,” we end up in the never-ending cycle of trying harder to fit into an equation that God never meant for us to solve. Instead of trying harder, we need to trust more.