My Resolution...Do Less...Trust God More

“He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” – John 3:30

⁵ But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. ⁶ For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love. – Galatians 5:5 & 6 

"Can I tell you something without you getting offended?"  

When the bedtime silence is broken by a question like this from my wife I automatically get defensive, but I cautiously asked her to proceed.  

She went on to share her observations and feelings, that my life was far too much about myself, and not nearly enough about God.  Her comments were something along the lines of, "It seems like something is missing, that your answer to life is to try harder.  If you try hard to be a good father, and good husband, a good church worker, that everything will be OK.  I don't see you looking to God.  I see you desperately trying to be good enough."

Crap!  She was right, she had figured me out.  The truth was I had really felt convicted about that very thing weeks ago.  Her observations were a poke in my eye.  They told me that I hadn't done enough to solve the problem...there I go again.  I went right back to trying hard and solving the problem.  But our relationship with God doesn't work like that.  

Faith in God is about trust, about letting go, ultimately about doing less.  I'm not going to be able to solve this with a little elbow grease.  I think this realization led Martin Luther to say "I'm too busy not to pray."  

I could easily make a resolution to spend x amount of minutes each morning in prayer, or read x amount of chapters from the bible each day, but that just becomes another thing to check off my list of things to do, another attempt at trying harder.    

Instead, I resolve to be less, to trust God more.  I resolve to rely less on myself.  I resolve to wait for God to transform me, rather than try harder to be better.  I resolve to trust God to show me what that looks like in my life, instead of adding a list of practices to adopt.  I resolve to ask God to help me in my duties as a husband, a father, and a full-time minister.  

Maybe you feel led to make a similar resolution.