“As a general rule, the harder you work to control things, the more you lose control.”

A thought by John Ortberg from his book, The Me I Want to Be (p. 71). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

But I thought to try harder is always what we need to do.

John says, “The harder you try to hit a fast serve in tennis, the more your muscles tense up. The harder you try to impress someone on a date or while making a sale, the more you force the conversation and come across as pushy. The harder you cling to people, the more apt they are to push you away.

“Sometimes trying harder helps. It can help me clean my room, push through phone calls I need to make, or run another lap. But for deeper change, I need a greater power than simply ‘trying harder’ can provide. Imagine someone advising you, ‘Try harder to relax. Try harder to go to sleep. Try harder to be graceful. Try harder to not worry. Try harder to be joyful.’”

He goes on, “Often the people in the Gospels who got into the most trouble with Jesus were the ones who thought they were working hardest on their spiritual life. They were trying so hard to be good that they could not stop thinking about how hard they were trying. That got in the way of their loving other people.”

John later says, “If trying harder is producing growth in your spiritual life, keep it up. But if it is not, here is an alternative:  Try softer...

He goes on, “Trying softer means focusing more on God’s goodness than our efforts. It means being more relaxed and less self-conscious. Less pressured. When I try softer, I am less defensive, more open to feedback. I learn better. I stay patient if things don’t turn out the way I expected. It means less self-congratulation when I do well and less self-flagellation when I fall down. It means asking God for help.

“When I am trying too hard, I cannot stop thinking how nobly I’m behaving. When I take even one step toward growth, my very next thought will often be pride at my goodness — which of course moves me two steps back. True growth always goes in the opposite direction of self-righteousness.”

Earlier he said, “A river of living water is now available, but the river is the Spirit. It is not you.

“The contemplative Franciscan priest Richard Rohr puts it like this: ‘Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.’

“Don’t push the river.”

Let’s quit trying so hard and let’s reach out to the Holy Spirit?

Yes, yes!