I've tried everything!

Are the words I hear from a person frustrated with an ongoing relationship. They are words I have said more than once. When I was frustrated to the point of ending it there, done, stick a fork in it it’s done.

Statements like this always beg the question, Really? Have we done everything or have we simply grown tired of trying and in our desire for a resolution quit? It has been said that the greatest breakthroughs come just after you’ve decided to quit.

“I’ve done everything,” is a statement of frustration although not of truth. Really, typically I have done everything I wanted to NOT every possibility. I may not have tried more than once. Do you learn to ride a bicycle by quitting after you fall the first time? No, certainly not but then in relationships there usually is more than one or a dozen falls leading to the frustration. Frustration at trying again when nothing has happened so far, why try again. Why indeed? A question of commitment to be certain.

After the resurrection the disciples went fishing. I suggest they had “done everything” and were done. So, they went back to what they knew before. And they fished all night catching nothing. In the morning a voice called from the shore asking of their catch. They told the “good news” nothing. The man on the beach said to let their nets down on the other side of the boat. They did. (I thought they were done?) When they did they caught 153 large fish stretching the net to the limit but it did not tear. It was Jesus who asked them to try one more time.

Frustration often leads us to quit when Jesus asks us to go one step farther not in our strength but in his. We thought we had tried everything and maybe we did except Him! Frustration leads us to pray for God to change the other in a relationship when the real prayer is to change us. To ask in His name is to ask to be removed from the way so that He will be visible. When that is our heartfelt prayer then and only then have we tried everything. God is Love. Love is everything.

To ask Jesus to teach us to love those we are struggling with is to try everything! It is to bring the heart of God, HIS very being to bear on ourselves changing us and revealing Jesus. He’s everything. For the future let’s skip the frustration step and move to the love step applying Jesus to our situation.

It seems more direct, certainly more done!