Overcoming The Christian's Daily Struggle

I’m going to start today with a short joke which has all sorts of interesting metaphorical meanings, most of which probably escape me.  You may have heard this before, and some guy named David Foster Wallace either came up with this or made it popular in a speech he gave.

There are two young fish swimming along one day when they pass an older fish.  The older fish nods at them and says, “How’s the water boys?”  The young fish keep swimming along and, after a few minutes, one of them says to the other, “What the heck is water?”

One of the joke’s important points is the highlighting of the reality all around us that we don’t even realize.  It’s the reality in which we exist, and we don’t even know it.  It’s such a fundamental aspect of our environment that we take it for granted or don’t even consider its existence at all.  But others understand these aspects of our reality or our environment, and that there are other environments outside of this one we might come to understand or experience.

A human being lives on land or another solid surface.  We understand that water exists, but it’s a different type of environment that we can’t live in without drastic changes, so drastic that a permanent change to that environment sounds impossible. 

When a person becomes a Christian, his or her understanding is opened to realize that there is another plain of living and operating that exists, and he or she must choose how to interact with it. 

That may sound complex, but we’ve all been there.  When we first started hearing the Bible’s teachings on relationships, money, jobs, goals, priorities, and many other aspects of life, we realized that the Bible presents a very different way of living for most areas of our lives.  So, if we are considering our lives in the light of our new salvation and God’s directions, we find ourselves thinking something like, “I’ve been doing it all wrong.”  Or, “I’ve got to make some changes.”  And so the journey begins.

For most people, the way of life available to a Christian first sounds like a bunch of rules.  Love your neighbor.  Tithe.  Don’t have improper physical relationships.  So on and so forth.  But while on the one hand the Bible does present us with a list of regulations and guidelines, as we draw closer to God we realize it’s not just about God’s rules for living.  In fact, God is presenting us with an entirely different lifestyle, with an entirely different plain of existence.

When one is born again, one’s spirit is born anew directly by the Spirit of God (John 3).  Moreover, your born-again spirit is born directly into a perfect and eternal union with God’s Spirit.  While your spirit may still inhabit a physical body, and the physical realm continues to dominate a huge portion of your existence, the spiritual realm is now opened to you, and the realities of the spiritual realm can become part of your reality.

In fact, and man this might sound crazy if you haven’t ever heard this stuff before, the spiritual aspects of your reality are supposed to become the dominant aspects of your reality.  Your unseen reality should come to dominate all aspects of your life. 

Here is how this might sound if one were thinking through these issues.  “I know that I’m a Christian now and I have this relationship with the Holy Spirit.  I have access to God’s Spirit for guidance and empowerment.  I also recognize that God’s Spirit wants me to treat my body a certain way and to act certain ways in my daily life.  I can actually learn to think spiritually, focusing my mind on spiritual matters and governing all thoughts according to God’s Word.  I can also learn to live spiritually, governing every aspect of my life according to God’s Word and the leading of His Spirit.”

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “living from the inside out.”  That phrase suggests the idea that we let our internal reality, our spiritual reality, dictate our natural and physical realities.

I can let my spiritual reality, and the realities of the spiritual realm, dominate my life and my relationship with the natural realm.  I can choose God’s ways or the world’s ways.  I can choose God’s directions or the world’s .  I can live spiritually or naturally.

Most humans go through life only aware of the natural realm, and in fact so aware of the natural realm that they don’t even realize its existence.  The natural realm so enslaves our minds and our experience of reality that we don’t even think another realm might exist, let alone that we could live there. 

As a Christian progresses in his or her relationship with God and understanding of God’s Word, the overall picture of spiritual living comes into view.  I can have a very different life which is a life according to God’s Word and the leading of God’s Spirit. 

I remember when I first realized this some 15 years ago, but I didn’t see it correctly, for I didn’t know God very well.  I understood that a life devoted to God would require many changes, many of which I didn’t want to make.  I wasn’t even thinking about obvious sins at that point, I knew they were wrong.  I was thinking about walking in love all the time, walking in honor and respect and forgiveness and generosity and all these other ideas that just sounded hard.  But I figured, oh well, I guess that’s just the way it is if I want to please God.

But a lot about that way of thinking is wrong.  It’s especially wrong because it fails to recognize that God’s ways lead to one’s best possible life.  While some of God’s guidelines may sound hard, and some of his rules completely repulsive, they actually lead to your best possible existence.  Ironically, pointing your life towards the spiritual realm, and letting your life be dictated by the spiritual realm, provides for your best possible life in the natural realm.  Who would have thought?!

In God’s directions for Christian living, we always find His brilliance.  Yes, God’s directions do lead to purity in our daily lives, and ever-increasing purity is required to experience a lot of God’s plan for your life.  But the same directions that lead to purity also lead to your best possible life. 

The best possible human life is a holy and pure life lived in complete conformity to God’s directions.  Isn’t it amazing how hard that statement sounds?  Did you feel any resistance in your mind when you hear that statement?  Let’s say it again.  The best possible human life is a holy and pure life lived in complete conformity to God’s directions. 

You may think that the areas of your life where you haven’t submitted to God’s directions actually make a better life for you, but that’s just not the case.  And that resistance you feel to the idea that a perfectly holy life would make for your best possible life, well that’s just the conditioning of a fallen world’s system and this period of time that’s ruled by the devil (2 Corinthians 4:4)!

And so every Christian has this daily struggle that shows up in multiple areas of life.  Do I do what God wants or not?  Do I treat my spouse correctly?  Do I watch certain forms of entertainment or listen to certain types of music?  Do I give to the church regularly?  Do I go to the bar with my old friends on the weekends?  I’m sure you could name your own examples from your life.  Do I submit this area of my natural life to the Spirit of God?

Sometimes we recognize that God’s ways would obviously improve our lives (break a harmful addiction, for example).  But in some areas the analysis is not so simple (isn’t it ok for me to be a little dishonest on behalf of my client, I am a lawyer representing a client, after all). 

If you’re anything like me, you go through life with a virtually constant dialogue about your choices.  What would Jesus do?  What does God want me to do here?  I know I should make this choice, but I really don’t want to.  And now, just to speak personally, I realize how many problems this internal struggle has caused me over the years. 

I actually accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in the third grade.  Now I didn’t dedicate my life to him for 15 years or so, but I never once denied the faith and I did have a very basic prayer life.  But for most of my life, and even for some time after I dedicated my life to God, I was living on the fence between decisions, between the two realms of existence. 

Even when I first started drinking and using drugs at age 15, I always felt bad about it.  That didn’t stop me for a long time, but it definitely affected my personality.  You know how some people are happy drunks and some are mean drunks.  As for me, I would be happy for the first few rounds, but then, really because of anger at myself, I would become unkind or rude to others.  This started to get really bad in my last year of college.  The conflict between my daily habits and the changes I knew I needed to make was ravaging my mind.  And it wasn’t good.

To a certain point this conflict exists in all Christians.  If you have ever read Romans 7 you will remember Paul talking about doing what he doesn’t want to do and the war between his old nature and his new nature.  My example above, with the drugs and drinking, easily helps identify the conflict, but even when obvious problems are dealt with, the same conflict remains.  It just looks different.  The situations and choices are different, but it’s still the same conflict.

Fortunately, by God’s grace, I now know the cure for this situation, the way to resolve this conflict once and for all.  In short, Christianity was never designed for anything less than complete and total devotion.  Only in complete and unconditional surrender will you find your freedom. 

You, my Christian brother or sister, are now fully united with God, and His spirit lives within you.  Your best possible life, all of God’s plans for you, all of the relationships you should have, all that you could hope to accomplish, your full self-realization or self-actualization, or whatever you might want to call becoming fully yourself, with all of your gifts fully realized, it’s all available to you now.  But you will only experience all of it when you resolve this conflict, and you must resolve it permanently and completely in favor of God’s ways and spiritual realities.

Where before I had a choice between right and wrong, natural and spiritual, my ways or God’s ways, now there is no choice.  Once and for all I choose the ways of God, and I will never make a different choice.  I totally surrender to the directions of God’s Word and God’s Spirit for my life.  There is no more conflict, I live this way, and only this way. 

Christianity was never meant to be a hobby or a religion or simply one aspect of your life.  True Christianity, Biblical Christianity, can only be understood and lived if we accept it for what it really is – an all-encompassing union with God such that every aspect of your reality points to Him, seeks Him, and flows from Him.

Maybe you have considered Jesus’ famous quote that “His burden is easy and His yoke is light” (Matthew 11:30).  Have you ever debated that statement with God?  It sure doesn’t feel easy and light to me sometimes.  In the same passage Jesus says, “Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest . . . and you will find rest for your souls.” 

This passage is not just about ending our labors for salvation and finding rest at the finished work of the Cross, although it is about that.  But this is another one of Jesus’ statements that almost sounds too good to be true, too hard to believe. 

When we fully surrender to God, and to the life for Jesus that we are called to live, both living for Him and becoming like Him, we find rest.  There is no more struggle, there is no more toil, there is no more conflict.  And now, fully yoked together with Jesus into His plan for our life, our best possible life is attainable. 

What an amazing truth! A yoke that calls us to change almost every aspect of our lives, including the way we think and how we see reality, is actually easy and light and the secret to our best possible existence.  I’m not suggesting that doing the right thing even in difficult situations won’t still be hard sometimes, I sure find it hard sometimes.  But I am telling you, based on God’s Word, that it will get easier and easier.  And even while you are bearing this burden, even while you are carrying this yoke, you will find rest.

When you go through life as the decision maker under the weight of the absolute deluge of constant decisions between right and wrong that this life presents, it’s going to be hard.  The Bible’s teachings will sound difficult if not impossible.  You will make some good decisions and some bad decisions.  You will see God’s will in some areas of your life but you will miss out on it in others.  But if you will yield all such decision making to God’s Word and the Holy Spirit, and fully devote yourself to the holy life God calls you to, you will find rest and so much more.

We would be remiss if we failed to mention Matthew 6:33, in which Jesus gives us one of the secrets of life, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”

Furthermore, what I’m discussing today is not just about your daily behavioral decisions between right and wrong actions, it’s about every aspect of your life.  In my business, I can try to slug it out and do my best and hold my temper and hope for the increase and God’s blessing.  Alternatively, I could do my best but also use my faith that my business revenue will increase while my required time and labors decrease.  I could ask God for guidance in every aspect of my business.  I could do whatever He tells me and land the great deals that don’t even require a ton of work.  I could give generously and know that God will bring harvest on my seed.  And that’s just the financial realm.

What if I truly began treating my spouse correctly according to God’s directions?  Not just that I’m not mean and I don’t cheat on her.  What if I unconditionally loved her as God tells me to do in Ephesians 5?  What if I honored her and acknowledged that we are heirs together of the grace of life according to 1 Peter 3?  I don’t really know what that means, but it sure sounds important.  What if I took my marital life and my financial life to the heights that they can go through the Bible’s teachings?

What if I acknowledged that God’s Word and God’s Spirit will teach me how to dominate every aspect of my life, not with a dominion of power that demands submission to my will, but with a dominion of God’s love and wisdom that creates the environment for God’s supernatural power to flow freely and produce God’s will in every area of my life?

If you will completely yield, if you will completely surrender, if you will make the decision once for the rest of your life, there is simply no telling what God will do in you and through you.

My friends, I can’t tell you that I’ve arrived at what I’m teaching you today.  But I can give this to you as a gift, and I can tell you that I believe this is a tremendous revelation.  The revelation is that daily Christianity only works in its highest expression, and every aspect of Christianity only makes sense, when viewed with complete devotion and total surrender. 

And you know what, this shouldn’t have even needed to be revelation for me at all.  I think, on some level, all Christians understand what I’m talking about today.  But I hope that by airing it out, by talking about it openly, that I can encourage you to do what you already know you should do – complete and unconditional surrender to God and His ways.

As we wrap this up today, please allow me to return to the discussion between land and water.  For this discussion I’m going to present land as the natural realm and water as the spiritual realm.  We all begin this life on land, slaves to original sin and our physical senses, and there we remain until we find salvation.  In salvation, we realize this other realm exists, and this other realm is filled with amazing truths and possibilities. 

As we grow in our relationship with God and our understanding of Him, we learn more about the spiritual realm, and we begin interacting with it.  We find more and more that the ways of the spiritual realm are better, that, while it doesn’t come naturally to me, this water seems to work well for me.  And so we start spending more time there.  We start learning more.  We become more comfortable. 

Then one day, usually after some serious Bible study or a great teaching on the subject, we realize that we were never meant to live a natural existence apart from the spiritual realm.  We realize that we are, quite literally, fish out of water.  We understand that we are in fact spiritual beings, and the most important aspects of our reality are found in the spiritual realm.  We also discover, usually to our shock, that in becoming like Christ, we are actually growing into the person we were born to be.  We are becoming more like our true selves, we are self-realizing, and this is only possible in our union with God.

And so, as we continue to grow, the ways of God’s Spirit and the spiritual realm begin to feel natural.  Love feels right, mercy feels right, gentleness feels right, patience feels right, kindness feels right and so on.  We are becoming both the best version of ourselves, and our real selves, simultaneously. 

When you are all in, when you are fully committed, when your Christianity is the entire foundation and framework of your reality, then it all starts to make sense.  And the fact is, that when you are fully immersed in the deepest part of the deepest end, that’s actually the safest and most fulfilling place to be.

The struggle was never meant to be don’t get drunk or don’t do drugs or don’t be a jerk.  No, the struggle is remembering, constantly and completely, that in fact, I am a deep ocean swimming fish with gills.  I am a born again child of God seated in Christ at God’s right hand with God’s blessings and love and power all available to me.

You are loving, you are kind, you are wise, you are powerful, you are peaceful, and you are every good attribute you could ever hope to be.  It’s just the truth, that’s who you are.  But this natural realm and sin and every other ungodly aspect of reality has changed you away from your true self.  However, you can make it back, you can be the person God created you to be.  No matter what you have done or been through, you can still be all that God created you to be. 

The idea of completely surrendering to God and His ways, both in terms of your daily behavior and in terms of how you operate your life, may sound crazy.  But that’s only because it’s so different from the natural realm and how most people live.  You will find, in perfect commitment to God and His ways, that in fact, this type of living starts to feel natural.  You will find that it agrees with you down to the very core of your reality.  You are becoming your true self.  The yoke is easy, the burden light.  You find rest for your soul, and all that God created you to be and do and have is available to you.