When Trying Harder Stops Working

Have you ever made a promise to yourself in the morning and broken it by lunch? Maybe it was about your temper, your phone, your spending, or what you let yourself watch late at night. You meant it. You really did. And then there you were, doing the exact thing you swore you were done with, and a quiet voice in your head asked, “What is wrong with me?”

If you've ever asked that, you're in good company. The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Rome, and right in the middle of it, he gets startlingly honest. Take a minute to read Romans 7:18-25 slowly. He says, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” A few lines later he says, “the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” This is the same Paul who started churches all over the ancient world, survived shipwrecks, and wrote a big chunk of the New Testament. And here he sounds like a guy sitting in a parked car at 11 p.m., wondering how he ended up in the same spot again.

Sunday's message called this one of the most relatable passages in the whole Bible, and it's hard to argue. Notice what Paul doesn't do. He doesn't say, “I've got a few areas to work on.” He doesn't dress it up. He says, “What a wretched man I am!” That's not polished church talk. It's the kind of honesty most of us save for our lowest moments, if we say it out loud at all. A man who knew God that well still felt stuck, and he wasn't embarrassed to put it in writing for a whole church to read. That alone should help us breathe a little easier.

Here's what's easy to miss, though. The passage doesn't end in despair. Paul asks, “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” And in the very next breath he answers: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Look at the question again. He doesn't ask what will rescue him, as in what plan, what book, what new routine. He asks who.

That one little word changes how we read everything. If the answer were a technique, we could do it by ourselves and feel pretty good about it. But if the answer is a person, then the first step is to quit pretending we have it handled and let someone help. Over the next five days, we'll dig into what Paul actually says, what was going on when he wrote it, and what it asks of us. For today, all you have to do is be as honest as Paul was. No fixing yet. Just telling the truth about where you feel stuck, even if it's only to God and to this page.