This has been one of the hardest lessons for me, and doubtless for many of you.

Bang my head against a wall hard. Who am I and why am I even doing this hard? Is this even worth it hard? Why is nothing working hard? How come it works for them and not for me hard? Am I the problem and what’s wrong with me hard?

Painful, lonely, doubting, desperate, tearful, terrified, torn apart hard.

Please feel free to insert your own [HARD] here.

The list is long, and the road is arduous.

Hard. Hard. Hard.

Taskmasters taught me that hustle is the road to results. That sweat is the currency of causation.

But I’ve discovered something better through all my tearful, sweaty efforts to succeed.

Hustle is not the highway!

The Road of Humility

Humiliation is helpful when it’s taken to the prayer closet. It was here I shed my outer skin and tapped a life within so much more beautiful than the one I’d been grasping for.

On the road from hard to easy:

I relinquished my need to be noticed.

Peeled away the sticky layers of ambition and envy.

Dropped comparisons.

Jettisoned the jostle for attention.

Drove the drivenness that whips the world out the door.

And slowly, sometimes painfully, settled into myself. A true self, or at least a little truer. Aligned more precisely with a divinely planted purpose.

And from here, the inner spring flows. A replenishing well of wellness effortlessly overflows.

There’s a grace gently yielded to not greedily grasped for.

An exhaustless creative river that gushes from the Source.

And it's easy.

Creative Christian life is rooted in rest. Trusting that the Father will be faithful to fulfil His promise…

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 ESV)

God has prepared works for you to walk in. Good ones.

He has cleared the way before you.

The hardest lesson is learning to be content to walk in step with Him.

If you insist on doing hard (as I did and still often do) do hard in the right direction.

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God..,” (Hebrews 4:9 NKJV)

“therefore strive to enter that rest,” (Hebrews 4:11 ESV)

“make every effort to enter that rest,”(NIV)

“be zealous and exert yourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for yourself],” (AMP)

And with each obedient step, it will become…

Easier. Easier. Easy.