Anything But Ordinary (Part 2): The Illusion of Effort
Effort: The Good & The bad
Do you remember the first time you were “bit by the effort bug”?
My first memory of this was around age 11, at a time where competing in youth sports was a big deal. I’d hit a point where the competition was leaving me with more losses than my pride could stand. My size & athletic limitations were catching up to me, and my parents knew it was taking a toll.
Instead of telling me to “suck it up”, “try something else”, or suggesting I quit, my parents offered some different advice. They said, “you’re right, you’re not the biggest or the fastest kid, which means you’re going to have to learn to work harder than everybody else.” And from that day on, that’s exactly what I started doing. I worked as hard as I possibly could & sure enough, things changed for the better.
As much as the effort is everything mentality helped me, over time, I learned that it couldn’t guarantee success in every arena of life. Like when somebody decides they don’t like you (for no real reason), it generally doesn’t matter how much effort you put into convincing them otherwise. When you take a test, there’s no amount of effort that can help you recall something you didn’t study. Or when you step onto a wrestling mat against a former wrestler…
You get the picture. Effort makes for a great ingredient, but a lousy ideology—as a way of life. The problem is, so many of us have adopted the “you get out of life what you put in” mantra as our calling card. And while there’s a lot of truth to that idea, there also comes a point in which it’s time to “get out, because you’ve been pulled in”. Pulled into a way of life that seems good, but ultimately robs you of God’s best.
When you repeatedly catch yourself feeling as if you’re not getting enough done, that’s often a red-flag that you’re doing too much. But that’s the issue with an effort-based ideology, it puts you under the illusion that you’re always playing catch-up in life. And the problem you find is, the more you play catch-up—
the more caught up you become.
So, what if your biggest problem isn’t that you’re underachieving, but overreaching? What if, instead, you chose to reach for something better? Something—
out of the ordinary.
Avoiding dead ends
There’s one fundamental flaw when it comes to effort from an ideological perspective:
It makes life all about you.
What you do, how you produce, what you’ve done lately. You. You. You. It not only makes you the most important character in your life, but in the lives of those you care about most. Without realizing it, you find yourself in a maze of:
Overworking, Over-committing, Overspending, Over-managing, Overexerting your body, & so on.
A maze where your good intentions take you everywhere, except for the place you truly intended to be. A place that Proverbs 14:12 (NLT) warns about when it says:
“There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.“
Effort, as it turns out, is a fool’s game— where the only prize is a lifestyle consumed with working yourself to death. So, what would it mean if you decided to stop playing the game? What would it look like if, instead of striving, you started submitting? If you finally got out of your own way & started embracing His way.
It’s easier said than done, but anytime God prompts you to start on a different path, He is faithful to lead the way. My hope is that you’ll recognize which of the following 3 paths you need to get off of. That you’ll submit those to God & allow Him to lead you out of the maze & back into His ways.
#1: The Path of Poor Instincts
As long as there’s something you: want in life, something you lack, or a perceived gap between where you are & where you wish to be, your instincts will inevitably lead you to try & close that gap.
Like a dog that plays fetch, the tendency is to run after every ball that’s thrown our direction. The next time you’re tempted to close the gap on your own, remember that you can trust something far greater than your instincts.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)
The world trains you to sell-out to the gospel of activity; God invites you to step into the Gospel of Proximity—
closeness with Christ.
#2: The Path of False Pride
We live in a world that’s dominated by the idea of competition. We’re driven by a relentless pressure to perform, to keep up with those around us, and to work ourselves into a position of relevancy & superiority. But God put several nails through this prideful notion, which Ephesians 2:7-10 (MSG) captures perfectly.
“…Saving is all His idea, and all His work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving.”
The world offers the spirit of competition, God offers the Spirit of Christ’s Commission—
to share his message of love with the world around us.
#3: The Path of Low Expectations
There’s often a temptation to go into “survival mode” when effort fails to deliver what we hoped for. To just put our head down and go through the motions. But God tells us to do something else entirely. He tells us to keep our eyes up, stay engaged, & expect only the best from Him.
“Jesus said, ‘Go on asking God for what you need. Then God will give it to you. Go on looking for what you need. Then you will find it. Go on knocking at the door, and God will open it for you.” Matthew 7:7 (EASY)
The world insists that you give greater effort; God inspires you to—
live with greater expectation.
“I’m over it”
If you’re an effort-junkie, it’s hard not to have your bubble burst by a message like this. But my hope is that you won’t mistake this for a call to be complacent, or that you should simply “do less”. Instead, I hope you’ll wrestle with God about it. That you’ll get upended in the way you see effort.
That by faith, you’ll start to understand that you can’t “out" anything with God. You can’t out-work Him, out-run Him, & most importantly, you can’t out-love Him. That by faith, you’ll start to understand that He doesn’t want your effort—
He wants you.
He wants you to realize that, those that only live to accomplish, will die when they don’t…a slow & painful death of disappointment. He wants you to know that, while you may manage many things, He still controls everything. God wants you to come along for the ride, to find out that life with Christ is when the real work begins.
Whether it’s the first time in a while or the first time in your life, God’s waiting to hear you say, “I’m over it”. To finally tap out of the effort race. And tap into—
His grace.
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today’s Takeaways
Live with greater, godly expectation
Proximity with christ > our own activity
life is about what jesus has already done