From Trying to Trusting

When self-effort spins its wheels, the Spirit invites us to stop trying and start trusting.

Devotional Credit: Abide Above
Photo Credit: Unsplash

Today’s devotional from Miles Stanford draws a clear and freeing distinction between being under law and living by life. The law was never given to empower us but to expose us. As sinners, it revealed our guilt. As believers, it reveals our inability to overcome sin by effort. This painful realization is not failure. It is the very place where God begins to teach us what true deliverance looks like.

Our Father already knows we are weakness incarnate. He is not surprised by our inability to live the Christian life through effort. We are the ones who have to come to terms with that truth. So He lovingly allows us to try, stumble, and grow frustrated with ourselves until we reach the same conclusion: we cannot do it. We were never meant to.

But we are not left there. The beauty of this process is that it leads us out of trying to live for God and into trusting Jesus to live through us. As we stop striving and start yielding, we begin to experience the power of resurrection life. It is no longer us trying to be good Christians. It is Jesus expressing His righteousness in and through us as we walk by the Spirit.

The law, at its best, would shape Adam. But we are not Adam improved. We are new creations in Jesus. The goal is not a better version of the flesh. The goal is life in the Spirit. Deliverance from the law is not a path to lawlessness but to fruitfulness. It leads us to a Spirit-led life, where the will of God is not a burden to achieve but a joy to experience.

Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture

You have come to the end of yourself, and that is where I begin. You tried. You fell. You tried harder. You fell again. I was not disappointed. I was drawing you to the truth. In your weakness, My power is made perfect.

You are not under law but under grace. You have died to the law through the body of Jesus, so that you might belong to Him, to the One who has been raised from the dead. You are no longer a slave to sin, nor are you a servant of self-effort. I have placed My Spirit within you so that you would live by a new way, not by striving but by yielding.

I know your frame. I do not ask you to succeed in your own strength. I ask you to trust in My Son, who is your life. He has fulfilled the law and now fulfills it in you. Walk by the Spirit. Live from the life that is already yours. Rest from trying to be what I have already made you. I am forming Jesus in you, not improving Adam.

Scripture References: Romans 6:14, Romans 7:4–6, Romans 7:24–25, Romans 8:4, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 2:13, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Ezekiel 36:27, Galatians 4:19, Colossians 3:4, Romans 8:1–2

Real-Life Analogy

Picture a car stuck in the mud. The harder you press the gas, the deeper the tires sink. Every attempt to push forward just pulls you further down. But the moment you release the accelerator and let someone tow you out, movement happens. The power was never in the spinning tires. It came from the one who had the strength to pull.

Many believers spend years pressing the gas of spiritual effort, sinking deeper in discouragement. But the Spirit does not tow us with guilt. He simply waits for us to stop pressing. When we release our grip on self-effort, and say, “Lord, I trust You to move through me in this moment,” the direction changes. It may be in patience with a child, restraint with a co-worker, or peace in a pressured decision. Whatever the moment holds, He will do it, not us.

Prayer of Confidence

Father, thank You that I no longer live under the pressure of performance. You have brought me to the end of my ability so that I would rest in Yours. I see now that all my trying only proved my need. And You met that need fully in Jesus.

Today, I walk by the Spirit. I rest in Your work. I am not here to reform the old man. I rejoice that the old man is crucified, and I now live by the resurrection life of Your Son. Thank You that Your will is not a weight I must carry, but a path You live through me.