Sometimes we just miss the point <---

When we look at the Bible, often times we just see a bunch of rules and expectations. We strive to meet those expectations, but the cold hard truth is that we cannot and then we feel like failures. We seek advice, pray harder, do more charity work, read an extra chapter in the Bible, and throw an extra 20 in the plate at church, but we still feel empty. We never feel like we will ever be able to reach the goal God has for us. The truth of the matter is that most times we thing we understand what God wants us to be, yet in reality it is only a standard that we have set for ourselves. We have taken the authority away from God and make ourselves our own disciplinarians. God does not want us to be perfect, He never says this, He only wants us to aim towards it. We need to stop thinking about only ourselves, for that is what we are doing when we consume ourselves with making sure our actions are meeting standard, and we need to focus on the most important thing God wants for us. This thing is not perfection, but rather the simplicity of a relationship with Him. He wants to interact with us, grow us, teach us, but he cannot do that when we are so consumed with ourselves. If we would stop working so hard to fill a requirement or to try and have a “successful Christian life,” we could simply rest in God and we would find more peace, joy, and victory than we ever could trying to play “Mr. Holy.”