Believe it or not, God has not called us to live a life of struggle.  Instead, He wants us to live the abundant life of grace through faith.  Why? It’s because grace is God’s power working in us to accomplish whatever God has committed to us.  A life of struggle, worry and stress is far from the life of grace.  Grace is God working in and through us, while we rest in confident trust by faith.

A picture of the kind of life God doesn’t want us to live is found in Mark 4:35-41.  Jesus had asked His disciples to let them go to the other side.  But while they were crossing over in a boat, the wind and the waves became really terrible.  The disciples began using all manner of things to get rid of the water from the boat.  But Jesus was sleeping there on a pillow.  Finally, they woke Him, accusing Him of not caring if they perished.  Jesus rose up and rebuked the wind and they marveled.  When we are not living a life of resting in the grace of Christ, we will struggle and sweat for nothing.  Only a life of restful trust in God and in His unfailing love and Word will give us fulfillment.  They were doing all they knew to do, leaving Jesus out of the equation, and would have been wiped out in the process.  A life of rest is a life that depends not on the arm of flesh but on the Lord.