Cease Striving and Know He Is God

“The key to giving in to rest: To remember that my loving, personal, and faithful Father is orchestrating my day. To let His peace wash over me, knowing everything does not depend on me. He has a good, abundant, and specific plan for my life. Amidst all my activity, I can trust in Him enough to include a rhythm of rest into my busy days.” Katie Orr

“Shame keeps us striving for acceptance, but grace gives us an eternal belonging.” Kayla Aimee

“Christians no longer need to pretend to be better than anyone else. We don’t have to put on any show of being good, for we know we are not. We are not good—we are forgiven; and so we are free to be honest before God and before others. We are free to be ourselves. We have given up trying to be good little boys and girls, and whenever we catch ourselves striving to please either God or others by dint of moral effort, we are the sort of people who react to this danger signal by falling on our faces before the Lord. For one of the secret privileges of being His child is knowing that it is all right to fail. It is all right to get tired...as His followers we know that if we are ever truly to reflect His goodness or His power, it will not be by human effort by only by grace.” Mile Mason

“It is by grace that we are saved. It is by this same grace that we are sanctified. It is all Jesus. It is always all Jesus. Nothing to the cross I bring only to the cross I cling.” BHY

“Self-striving nurtures self-hatred. Toiling in the flesh produces foiling in the soul.” Ann Voskamp

“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; Lord Sabaoth, his name, from age to age the same, and he must win the battle. And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him. That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth; the Spirit and the gifts are ours, thru him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill; God's truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.” Martin Luther

“When Naomi arrived in Bethlehem after her sorrowful sojourn in Moab, she could not see a harvest from her tears. It all looked like a tragedy; like ‘vanity and striving after wind’ (Ecclesiastes 1:14). That’s how it looked. That’s how it felt. But that’s not how it was. In reality, all of the ups and downs in Naomi’s life—the famine, the move to Moab, the deaths of Elimelech, Mahlon, and Chilion, Ruth���s loyalty, Naomi’s return at barley harvest, Boaz, and the kinsman who chose not to redeem Ruth—all of these events played parts in God’s plan to redeem millions and weave a Moabite into the royal, Messianic bloodline. The bigger story of redemption was far bigger than they imagined. Even though they were in the middle of the story, none of them could see it from their vantage point. We must remember this perspective in our times of desolation, grief and loss. How things appear to us, and how they actually are, are rarely the same. Sometimes it looks and feels like the Almighty is dealing ‘very bitterly’ with us, when all the while He is doing us and many others more good than we could have imagined. God’s purposes in the lives of His children are always gracious. Always. If they don’t look like it, don’t trust your perceptions. Trust God’s promises. He is always fulfilling His promises.” Jon Bloom

“If all we bring to God is our moral striving, we’re back at the same lie that put us in need of salvation. We’re stuck with our independent talents, longing, and resolve to make it happen. This self-sufficient effort to assuage a distant deity – it nauseates God.” John Lynch

“When we let our fears and anxieties dominate our emotions and behaviors, peace will seem out of reach. This will remain true as long as we seek peace in our own strength. Where do you seek peace? In striving for perfect, conflict-free relationships? In knowing you have more money than you could possibly need? In feeling accepted by those around you? But peace can only come from God's righteousness working within us. No person can have peace apart from a daily filling of the Spirit of God.” Michael Youssef

“There is a stillness that comes after the fire, a period that stretches longer than we’d like with nothing happening on the surface. It was a sanctifying, all-consuming flame, intentionally set and controlled by His hands of grace but a fire nonetheless. And what came after was fallowness — a season to rest and reset, to be replenished and renourished. But I was so used to having my hand at the plow, my knees dirty from the work, that I didn’t know how to do nothing. I didn’t know how to have room in my life, to hold space and emptiness and be still in the quiet of not being rushed. I hadn’t learned to rest while in the wilderness season before, so preoccupied with simply making it to the next day. I became bewildered by the lack of momentum in my life. I didn’t know what to do with my arms and hands. They felt awkward and unsure of themselves. I didn’t know if I should raise them in praise for the rest I was to enjoy or move them at twice the speed to be productive. But every attempt to start cultivating anything felt like striving, like Adam toiling away at the land after it had been cursed. But the lack of cultivation in my life wasn’t a curse; it was meant to be a blessing. But God was inviting me to watch His ways and learn from Him, to sit and see what He could do out of the ashes left from the fire. And like a gentle mother, He pried my fingers off the plow. It wasn’t mine to hold anymore. He whispered to my soul that fallow seasons aren’t meant for hurry. They’re meant to undo the hardwired muscle memory of labor, to reorient our bodies, minds, and souls to the unrushed pace of God. They’re meant to teach us to dance to the unforced rhythm of grace. Fallow seasons are meant to bring life in a way it hadn’t been before. They aren’t seasons of death though it may look like it on the surface for a moment. Instead, they are the transition period between death and new life, between ashes and beauty. The transition is slow. When all the sanctifying of my character and the healing of old wounds in the wilderness season didn’t magically turn into blossoms, my impatient self was confused. I expected it to be more like a time-lapsed video where a seed sprouts into a flower in just a couple of minutes. But God has the clarity of seeing things from eternity to eternity. He is not bound by time, and so He is patient. He is never annoyed with the slowness of transformation but always delights in the intricate care of redeeming burned things. And He is not done with us in the midst of fallow seasons. We are the land being cultivated. We are the farmer, sitting and watching His grace do its work. We are the wildflowers that will bloom. We are all these things, but we are not the sower. God is the one who does the work of cultivation. He is the Good Sower — not of plants grown in perfect rows or roses that grow in neat flower beds. He is a Sower who flings the seeds of wildflowers into the field, cares for them, and delights in their unpredictable beauty. He is the one who invites us to rest as He does the work and to wait in peaceful expectation for what’s to come. He burns away the old with fire and cultivates the land for the new things He is doing in our lives, allowing light and water to reach down deep, awakening and breaking open the seeds that have laid dormant before to thrive in the soil He has made good. What will come is a mystery, and we gain nothing when we rush into seasons we’re not ready for. So sit with Him, rest with Him, watch Him do His good and holy work while the land still lies fallow.” Grace P. Cho