This is Me (Not) Trying: by Anna Brown
Recently, I’ve been listening to a Taylor Swift song called “This is me trying” on repeat. In her recent documentary about her album (excuse my nerd-out for a moment), she talks about writing the song for people who are “doing their best every day and feel like it isn’t good enough”. Although the song has much deeper layers of meaning, I have found it really relatable in the past few weeks in the Fellows program. Recently, I have been struggling with feeling like me “trying my best”, in many areas of my life, just isn’t good enough.
I’m trying to be a good employee and coworker, but I keep letting small details slip through the cracks. I’m trying to be a good youth group leader, but a lot of the time I don’t understand the jokes or references 7th graders make. I’m trying to be a good friend, but sometimes it feels like all my best efforts come across as hurtful or selfish. Most of all, I’m trying to seek the Lord and his voice here in Nashville. However, a lot of days I feel like I’m falling short in this area most of all. I continually find myself repenting of the same sins, struggling to dedicate time for prayer, and feeling distant from the Lord.
For all of these reasons, I’ve been feeling pretty tired of trying.
On Friday, several of the Fellows travelled to Pigeon Forge for a quick 24 hour trip. Even though it was a packed day, it felt like taking a deep breath. We played games, we listened to music, we hiked slowly by a river, and we laughed as we rode an $18 alpine coaster (worth every penny). I enjoyed being with the people that I’ve come to know as true friends in a way that I haven’t in a while. As I was reflecting on the sense of peace and joy I was feeling, I realized that, for most of the weekend, I hadn’t really been trying my best at anything (other than maybe winning a round of Werewolf). Away from my day-to-day rhythms, I found space to stop performing for myself and others and just be.
As I began thinking about how I could carry that feeling of rest and freedom back to my day-to-day life, I remembered the words of an advent hymn that I have been listening to on repeat for the past few weeks:
“Come, thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us;
Let us find our rest in thee…
By thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By thine own sufficient merit
Raise us to thy glorious throne.”
Jesus came at Christmas to set us free from the pressure of performance. He came that we could find our rest in Him, free from our fears of not being good enough and our sins of falling short of God’s standards. Although my “trying my best” is destined to fall short time and time again, Jesus’ all-sufficient merit accomplished all things perfectly on my behalf. Jesus, the one whose best was always good enough, was made “to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21).” By his grace, I can stop beating myself up for the times that trying becomes exhausting. I can stop worrying about what happens if I try and fail. I can take a deep breath and genuinely do my best in friendships, work, and faith with the joy found only in the knowledge that I am the beloved child of God the Father and that status won’t change based on my changing performance. Furthermore, I can find peace in the knowledge that He himself will accomplish the work of sanctification in my life, even when I fall short in trying to improve my own faith. One of my favorite RUF benedictions from 1 Thessalonians 5 sums it up best:
“23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”
This Christmas, I’m praying that I find rest in Jesus’ success rather than my own effort, and that I allow myself to take a breath and enjoy, rather than simply try. And that maybe I get another chance to beat my friends in a round of Werewolf :)
