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Many of us wake up tired before the day even starts, not knowing how to rest in grace. Such is the weight that life offers. We carry worries about money, family, health, and relationships, trying hard to be good Christians as we go to church, read our Bibles, and pray.
Yet something still feels missing, and we keep trying to find what it is, but never do.
Ashley D. Wille knows this feeling intimately. She knows that Christian encouragement for daily living is needed. In My Journey Through the Cross, she writes about years of feeling empty even when life looked good from the outside. She had the nice house, the nice car, and the nice family, but inside, she felt like she was “floating through life feeling like an outsider.”
Many of us can relate to this: looking alright on the outside but feeling empty on the inside.
The good news is that God offers us something better.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. —Matthew 11:28
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To Rest in Grace
Resting in grace means stopping the endless work of trying to earn God’s love. So many of us live like God is keeping score, so we think that if we do enough good things, God will love us more.
If we mess up, God will love us less–but this is not how grace works.
Wille discovered this truth after years of struggle.
“I started to see that the purpose of the law was to point out sin, hence pointing to the cross. Then I realized that Christ had walked, for me, from the old covenant through the cross of death and into the new covenant.”
Solace in Mercy
There is no way around the fact that in life, there is no pain. There is no life where there is no pain. Marriage can be hard, and children can be exhausting. Health can fail, and our friends can let us down. In these hard times, we need mercy. We need mercy from God–a mercy that seeps into our souls and comforts us.
Wille walked through a long season of pain in her marriage. She felt disconnected from her husband and always alone, even though she was married. For years, she cried out to God despite no answer.
But in that pain, something was happening. God was drawing her closer to Himself.
“In this furnace, God was leading me into a valley of excruciating darkness, in which I would come to behold rare and precious treasures by His hand.”
This is hard to understand, but it is true. Some of the deepest solace in mercy comes only after we have walked through deep pain. God does not waste our suffering. He uses it to peel away our false comforts so we can find our true comfort in Him.
Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. —Isaiah 30:20
Living with Spiritual Ease
Many Christians live with a constant sense of pressure. They feel like they have to keep God happy, always worrying that one wrong move could ruin everything. This is living with spiritual bondage, and it is wrong.
Wille discovered that much of her struggle came from trying to mix law and grace. She tried to obey the Ten Commandments in her own strength and tried to be perfect. And she kept failing.
“How exhausting and depressing! Though confused for years, I now know the falsity of the popular ‘balance’ between law and grace because I have learned biblically and experientially, and through nearly losing my mind attempting to balance the two, that law and grace, like oil and water, cannot mix.”
This is a freeing truth. We cannot mix law and grace. We cannot earn our salvation and then try to keep it by being good. Salvation is a gift from start to finish. When we understand this, we can start living with spiritual ease. Not the ease of laziness, but the ease of trust. We stop trying to carry the weight of being good enough because we know Jesus already carried it for us.
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” —Matthew 11:29-30
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Trusting God’s Timing
Waiting is hard. We live in a world of fast food, fast internet, and fast everything. We want answers now. We want healing now. We want change now. But God often works slowly. He is not in a hurry because He is not bound by time.
Wille learned this lesson through years of waiting. She writes about how God taught her that He is the God of time. She shares a simple but profound thought: “If God is never in a hurry, and He is my God, and I am here to do His will, why should I ever be in a hurry?”
This question changed how she lived. So, she stopped rushing and panicking when things ran late. She learned that trusting God’s timing means believing that He has everything under control, even when it looks like things are falling apart.
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. —Psalm 27:14
The Next Step to Faith
Ashley D. Wille’s book My Journey Through the Cross walks through this truth in much more detail. She shares her own story of moving from striving to rest, from trying to trusting, from fear to faith. If this article has touched your heart, consider reading her full story. Let her journey encourage your own. You can find My Journey Through the Cross online or through your favorite bookseller.
Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. —Hebrews 4:11
