Letting Go of Self-Improvement and Embracing Freedom

And now what the law code asked for, but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.  Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life.  Those who trust Gods action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them-living breathing God! (Rom. 8:4-5)

At times in my life, I’ve tried to play the role of God.  I’ve tried to control things that only He could control.  I’ve tried to take on burdens and pressures that only He could bear.  And I have held myself to a level of perfection that only He could attain.  I have mixed faith with self-effort and ideas of my own design that have kept me spinning my wheels, only to discover I am no further along than when I started.  I have discovered no matter how hard I try to cover and perfect my flaws and my weaknesses I am only left feeling like I am coming up short.  Have you ever reached the place of realizing that your self-efforts to achieve freedom and fullness in life are exactly the things that are preventing you from getting there?  I sure have.

We spend an awful lot of effort trying to come up with our own solutions, trying to fix our own brokenness, trying to find answers to things we can never fully understand.  We can at times even try to apply spiritual truths to our lives by our own sheer force and will.  Am I the only one who has ever grasped a truth or promise from scripture and then by my own strength set out to accomplish it?

We are obsessed with doing.  We often feel there is more we could be doing.  And when things aren’t going our way and we are faced with struggles, we ask what else could I do?  I am realizing that “doing” can be a security blanket.  It can make us feel as though we are in control.  It promises to be an antidote but offers no real power.

I love the scriptures referenced above.  How relatable it is to try to accomplish what only God could do by our own “moral muscle.”  But as the scripture points out, this way of living keeps us from the life we were made for.  We make plans and devise our own strategies of how we are going to make the most of our lives, but drain ourselves of energy and strength, until we are too depleted to live it.

There is another way.  As Paul points out, we are to “embrace what the spirit is doing in us.”  We must trust God’s work within and must trust who He is.  Learning to embrace His work and to truly trust God, involves laying down control.  It involves surrender.  It involves accepting our humanity and that we don’t have the answers.  It means letting go of the need to always plan things out ten steps ahead and asking Him which step to take moment by moment.  It means allowing ourselves to be embraced and loved through moments of pain and fear, rather than rushing to our own aid to fix it.  In many ways, it means getting off the hamster wheel of “self”-improvement and choosing to rest instead.  It means putting an end to our striving and frantically trying to move forward and instead, choosing to sit with our weakness and our pain and asking the Lord what He says about it.  It involves an entirely new way of thinking about or viewing our problems that only comes as we sit at His feet.  It means acknowledging truth even when we don’t feel it.  It means that we stop trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations and learn what it means to be ourselves.  It means celebrating small victories and recognizing that even if it seems like nothing is happening God is always working.  It means letting go of the ways we try to do God’s job and allowing ourselves to be messy, flawed, and human instead.  It means recognizing that even in our messiest moments, we always have been and always will be loved.

This is where we find freedom.