When Strivings Cease
When Strivings Cease: Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace
By: Ruth Chou Simons
“Could it be that we are so worn and desperate for ways to better ourselves because we’ve missed the power, inherent in the grace of God, that eradicates self-improvement altogether?”
“Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10)
This is such an important book.
Just that phrase- ‘when strivings cease’- doesn’t that sound nice?
I don’t know about you, but I definitely feel the exhaustion of striving. Of trying to be better. Of trying to be good enough.
It’s such an easy trap to fall into. It’s the voice of the world, the message of our society: ‘You have what it takes if you dig deep enough, try hard enough, you are your own hero, you can achieve anything you set your mind on, go get it girl, it’s yours for the taking.’
And since we like control, standards that are measurable, and lists that are checkable, we run that little hamster wheel of striving to be the ever elusive perfect version of ourselves and it is truly never-ending. What is the goal anyway? Do we even know anymore?
Ruth Chou Simons has written this book from her own battles with striving— rooted partly in the achievement and honor based Asian culture she grew up with and shares with readers— and encourages us to reject the striving and to rest in the grace of God.
“We’re worshiping the gospel of self-reliance. Self-reliance is something we can control, manipulate, and measure according to our efforts. Grace, on the other hand, is countercultural with its rejection of self-sufficiency and its relinquishing of power. Whether we recognize it or not our culture is sadly intoxicated with the lure of all that’s measurable and based on self-reliance, even for those who claim to represent the gospel of Christ. We say we trust that Jesus is enough, but we spend our lives trying to prove that we are, instead.”
Part One
These first chapters talk about all the things we strive for. I was surprised to realize how many of these I actually do.
We strive:
to please
for attention
to be good enough
for approval
to save ourselves through perfection
to belong
to outrun shame
to have it all
We think we are broken, we are unworthy, and unwelcome. We think God won’t love us or want to hear from us until we have our act together. Until we’ve proven our love and devotion by our good works.
We twist what we deem ‘acceptable’ when we partake of the cancel culture environment. We have to fit in with the shifting sands of cultural acceptability where there is no redemption, just running from reprimands.
And in our efforts of striving we place our own expectations on other people and become disappointed when they don’t measure up either.
We make idols of people, achievements, and attributes in our attempts to become our best selves.
All of these things show that we don’t really know God or His gospel.
I hadn’t read that verse in Psalm that I wrote at the beginning of this review in that translation before. You may recognize the verse as ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ But I like that adjustment in wording.
Cease striving. And know God.
If we know God then we know he loves us and has always loved us before we ever did anything good or bad. If we know the gospel we know that we can never do enough to earn our salvation. We can never be good enough. But we don’t have to be. Jesus took our sin and bestowed on us his righteousness.
I reflected on that verse a few years ago in this blog post. But I hadn’t considered this aspect of what ‘be still’ entails. It’s not just to trust God in the storms and destruction and chaos of life.
It’s to relinquish both the outcomes and the outworkings.
Striving leads to our own exaltation.
Resting in grace leads to God’s exaltation who sanctifies us through his Spirit not our efforts.
Part Two
The last chapters remind us what grace actually does for us.
Grace:
makes us new
fuels good works
cancels our debt
rewrites our stories
replaces fear with freedom
makes forgiveness possible
Grace is such a common Christian word that sometimes I think we forget what it means. We may believe ourselves unworthy of it, or we may use it as an excuse to even try to obey at all.
I think it’s a tough balance between obedience and pursuing holiness, yet resisting our desires to earn our salvation and our worth.
Here Ruth helps us visualize how grace plays out in our lives.
In one chapter she asks what we find hard to forgive in others. Then she says that if it’s something you can measure in yourself, you’re missing God’s grace. I thought it was really interesting to ponder the things that are hard for me to forgive and to realize how those things are a reflection of what I’m trying to measure and live up to in myself.
Extending forgiveness acknowledges our own failures and our own need for forgiveness. It relinquishes our self-given right to judge others’ righteousness. And it shows us where we have placed a barrier in ourselves against God’s grace.
Another thing she talked about that resonated with me was this quote:
“Rest and satisfaction are essentially what awaited the Israelites in the promised land. Rest from their toils and striving, satisfaction for their hunger and longings. And you may remember, they couldn’t access God’s promised rest in their disbelief, fear, and distrust. They couldn’t receive the land even when they tried to take it with their own hands with fervor… The Israelites did not settle the Land of Milk and Honey until they believed and trusted the God who promised it.”
I reflected on the promised land and God’s deliverance of us from our slavery to our sin and worship of self in this blog post. Ruth gives us this good reminder that the benefits of God’s grace only come when we trust in his deliverance and stop trying to control everything and manage our morality.
Real freedom comes from surrendering not striving.
Conclusion
Ruth ends her book with this summary:
“Strivings cease when…
… we no longer need to prove our worth.
… we stop chasing approval as our comfort.
… we glory in our weakness.
… God is greater than our accomplishments.
… we know peace apart from pleasing others.
… God is for us and no longer against us.
… Jesus so captures our gaze we stop chasing everything else.”
This book is for everyone. Battling the striving mentality is a daily endeavor. This book is relatable and convicting. It will bring the meaning of ‘grace’ back to life for you and offers you the best way out of the exhaustion and disappointment.
I can’t help but read the title of this book and think of the song In Christ Alone. Such a fitting title of a song and lyrics that remind us that He is all we need. He is our hope and our peace. When strivings cease.
“In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My comforter, my all in all
Here in the love of Christ I stand.”
More Quotes:
[because she says it better than I can]
“We’re working so hard to bloom, to bend, to please that we’ve neglected the soil from which we flourish.”
“We can’t know true freedom if we expect grace to make us merely better, rather than completely new.”
“God wants our true worship, not our perfect performance.”
“Our efforts make us prideful, even though we still question if we’ve done enough. Because we don’t believe we‘re hopeless enough or that God is merciful enough, we become driven by merit rather than grace. But we end up feeling disappointed all the time because our standards are defined not by God’s ability but our own. And we’re trying to hold others up to the same standards.”
“Are you more concerned with your performance or God’s presence in doing the work?”
“Is being the hero of your own story actually a relief? Is self-reliance truly satisfying?”
“Social media posts, brand alignment, political affiliation, mask wearing, vaccines, protests, news channels. These are just a few areas where the collective is now shaping what we think of as acceptable. The sad part is the way we’ve come to determine someone’s worthiness based on our different definitions of acceptability. We’ve somehow replaced identity with identification.”
“When we strive to avoid shame, the antidote isn’t self-love— that’s where I think current self-help fails us as Christ followers. We don’t need to simply feel no shame; instead, we need to recognize that the entire redemption story is about shame and ‘everything Scripture says about shame converges at Jesus. From his birth to his crucifixion, the shame of the world was distilled to its most concentrated form and washed over him.’”
“We can call it spiritual discipline, hard work, commitment, or pursuit of holiness, but if it’s motivated by self-fulfillment or self-improvement, it’s not a worship of God; it’s a worship of self.”
“Without grace, we wouldn’t even know how desperately we are in need of it.”
“God’s grace isn’t an afterthought for a believer walking through unexpected circumstances; it’s the anchor.”
“Satan’s very favorite tactic, from the beginning, has been to mess with our minds and to plant seeds of doubt in God’s faithfulness, God’s forgiveness, and God’s favor. This is the trifecta of freedom in a believer’s life. His faithfulness eclipses our clawing for control; his forgiveness erases debilitating guilt and shame; and his favor eradicates our need to look anywhere else for love than God himself.”
**Received a copy via Goodreads Giveaway**
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