Trying Harder to Do Better

Self-reliance is highly prized in our Western culture. Self-reliance translates into self-effort, using our own power and abilities to overcome obstacles, to achieve. Both self-reliance and self-effort are viewed as virtues while being dependent is viewed negatively as some kind of moral failure. In my life, I have lived out of both self-reliance and self-effort. But in the spiritual life, self-reliance and self-effort are obstacles that block spiritual development.

Self-effort is about trying hard to succeed. In the spiritual life, self-effort means trying harder to do better. It is about doing. It is about changing behavior. We try to stop what we view as wrong (sinful) and start doing what we view as right.

Self-reliance and self-effort play on our awareness that we fail to measure up (as do many religious groups and pastors!). We live with the awareness that, when it comes to God, we fail to do what is pleasing to God. In religious terms, we sin.  We always have room for improvement.

Which raises the question: how do we deal with this awareness that we fail to measure up? Until we learn differently, we inevitably turn to self-reliance and self-effort. We resolve to do better.

Trying harder to do better, i.e., self-reliance and self-effort, often produces a vicious cycle: awareness of failure, resolve to do better (repentance, recommitment, rededication - call it what you want), self-effort, inevitable relapse and failure. The relapse restarts the cycle: awareness, followed again by resolve to do better, self-effort (trying harder), followed by another inevitable relapse. And then the cycle starts all over yet again.

This pattern of "trying harder to do better" is common in religious circles. And it has devastating consequences. It can lead to a sense of defeat. No matter how hard we try, we fail. So we give up. We surrender. Our sense of defeat is generally accompanied by guilt and shame ... and a good dose of self-loathing. OR, the cycle can lead us to settle for "as best I can." We tip our hats at the recurring failure, saying "nobody is perfect." We don't dwell on the reality. Rather, we do our best to be good people. We are active in church life, doing church activities, i.e., things we can do. OR, the cycle can lead us to spiritual arrogance and spiritual blindness. The ego cannot endure the humiliation associated with repeated failure. So we find a way psychologically to block it out. We focus on others' failure while naming the good that we do. (Judging and condemning others are indicators that we have become spiritually arrogant and blind. See Matthew 7:1-5.) Focusing on others' failures allows us to feel superior. We become spiritually arrogant. Focusing on the good things we do blinds us to the wrongs we do. We become spiritually blind.

Any one of these outcomes is devastating spiritually. At best, they leave us unchanged, spiritually undeveloped and immature. At worse, they leave us blind to our condition.

OR, there is another possible outcome. The repeated cycle can help us recognize a fundamental spiritual reality, a reality that self-reliance and self-effort ignore. The focus of the spiritual journey is internal, not external; the heart, not behavior. See Matthew 15:15-20 and Mark 7:14-23, "out of the heart." While self-effort can change some behavior, no amount of self effort can change what is in the heart. Only God can transform the heart.

This spiritual reality puts us in a position of dependency on God, on God's grace, on God's forgiveness, on the Spirit's transforming work. The thing is, spiritual dependency is hard on the ego. We don't like to be in a position of dependency. We like to be self-reliant, independent. We like to believe "I can do it myself!" But in the spiritual realm, we cannot do it ourselves. We need God.

Spiritual progress is not possible through self-reliance and self-effort. Self-reliance and self-effort actually block progress. Spiritual progress is only possible through a spirit of glad dependence. It is only possible by acknowledging what my professor called spiritual bankruptcy: I do not have the ability, in my own strength, to live the ways of God. No amount of my self-effort will produce love or joy or peace or any of the other nine fruit of the Spirit. Only the Spirit, working in me, transforming my heart, can produce love and joy and peace in me.

Spiritual progress is never the result of self-reliance and self-effort. Spiritual progress can only occur when we abandon self-reliance and self-effort ... when we quit trying so hard. It can only occur when we, in a spirit of glad dependency, open our hearts and minds to the transforming work of God's Spirit.