Learning to Live What I Believe

Here's what I'm doing this weekend...
1. Dwelling on my theme of "rest" this year.
2. Considering how life in Jesus is, in Ed Welch's words, "restless rest, with the accent on rest."
3. Learning to shed the "try hard" life one day at a time.

Listen in to more of what Welch has to say. Better yet, read his whole post here. And join me in actively pursuing rest.

He writes,

"I must try harder."

While so many other functional beliefs immediately sound heterodox, this one sounds biblical. Who among us isn’t trying harder to love our neighbor, love God, eat better, go greener, and exercise more? And aren’t we supposed to work out our salvation and live like athletes who want to win a race?

Yet, “I must try harder,” as I have heard it used, is always doomed to fail, as it should. It can mean: “I have tried harder and it didn’t help, and maybe I should keep trying harder, but why bother?” It can mean: “I have tried harder, and it didn’t help, but I will keep trying harder because I don’t know what else to do.” Or it can mean: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I messed up. I’ll try harder. Okay? (Now stop bothering me.)”

“I must try harder” comes from the set of beliefs in which Jesus, at most, is our [distant] coach, giving direction, encouragement, and a good tongue lashing from the side-lines while we try to compete, without much assistance, against someone clearly more skilled than ourselves. Victory is never really possible. We just hope to avoid an embarrassingly lopsided loss.

Life in Jesus, however, is restless rest, with the accent on rest. Faith, which is the primary human response to God, means that we trust him and not ourselves. More specifically, faith means, “Jesus, help!” And this is very different from a foundational belief, “I must try harder.”

I want to try harder too, but in the right way. We need to be activists in our rest. We actively ask God to show us the way, to do what he is calling us to do, in the Spirit’s power. But the belief I hear most often is the resigned, self-reliant version of “I must try harder.”

Now is always a good time to assign ourselves a new task, such as to rest in, abide in, believe in, trust in, know and enjoy the rescuer of our souls."

-Ed Welch, excerpt from post titled, "What Christians Believe: 'I Must Try Harder' "

And once again, I can say what I believe, but if I don't live what I believe, than it really doesn't matter at all that much now, does it?

A Poem

Remembering, "It is finished,"
Every day, every hour, every moment,
Surrendering to His better story, quiet
Trust.

The Year of Rest

She said it best who quietly commented, "I can't even begin to prepare for 2012...I'm still processing 2011."

And my head nods, and my heart knows, and I wonder, too, how I will ever prepare.

Here January bids goodbye, and I'm still pondering.

Deep down, I know, though. If I've learned anything this past year, I'm slowly accepting the truth that I can really only do one thing well. Or shall I say, attempt to do one thing well. I'm learning about the power of one. One task. One pursuit. One goal.

One word? Others have done it. I'm learning from them, too

She had a word. First she choose "Eucharisteo." {and she wrote a book}. Then she lived "Communion." The following year, "Yes." Next, "Here." This is her Year of Koinonia.

I'll sit and listen, too. What's my word?

Strangely enough, the New Year calmly commenced with a day of rest. Can we begin all new endeavors with a day of Sabbath rest? And isn't that really what we all really need? Or isn't that what I, at least, need most? To rest from trying, rest from laboring, rest from wondering and worrying and wishing and working? To rest in the here, the now, the good, the right, the moment, and the mystery? To remember that, "It is finished."

Rest. Yes, rest.

That's my word.

That's how I'll live 2012.

2012. The Year of Rest.