If you’re a Christian, you’ve probably struggled to figure out what it looks like to walk the line between resting in Jesus’ work and striving to obey him. But are you asking the right questions?

Several years ago, I sat down to answer a basic question: What does it look like for me to be a good Christian, wife, mom, friend, and neighbor? Not broadly, but specifically. What could I be doing today and in the coming years to grow in these areas?

I searched Scripture to find out what God says about these life roles. I gleaned from sermons, conferences, and wise friends, and I wrote down my highest priorities in each area. Then I broke these down into specific goals and tasks, and even calendared some of the tasks to make sure I remembered to do them. And I prayed for God’s help.

This exercise did some amazing things for my family and me.

Oh wait.

It didn’t.

Not really, anyway.

Two big truths

The plan didn’t transform my life. It’s not that it was bad, but I think the biggest thing it did was help me practice the art of accepting forgiveness for my failures.

If you’re a Christian, and if you’re anything like me, maybe you’ve struggled to figure out what it looks like to walk the line that threads through two big truths:

First, Jesus did it all. We’re hopeless sinners, saved only by his grace, and not because of anything we did to earn or deserve it. Without Jesus, even our best works are meaningless (Isa. 64:6). With him and through him, a holy God sees us as pure. We are free forever from all condemnation.

But second: “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:1–2).

I sat down to answer a basic question: What does it look like for me to be a good Christian, wife, mom, friend, and neighbor?

How indeed? I know I still sin. So in between saved-by-grace and home-at-last is the rest of my life. During that time, however short or long, I’m meant to live an increasingly godly life. I’m meant to be sanctified.

Asking the wrong questions

I know God is in charge of my sanctification. It’s his gig. He’s directing the show. But I have a part, right? I can’t sit back and do nothing, which means I must do something.

What something?

For most of my Christian life, it’s been hard for me to revel in the freedom and rest offered by grace while still striving hard after the post-conversion godly life described in the Bible.

Aren’t we supposed to strive? Aren’t we supposed to look in the Bible for answers to important questions like: What does God want me to do? How should I live? How do I love?

God is in charge of my sanctification. It’s his gig. He’s directing the show.

I’m not so sure. At least, I’m not so sure that’s the best thing we can do. And I’m not sure those are the best questions we can ask.

In my experience, we Christians are much better at encouraging each other to be strong than to “be still” (Ps. 46:10; translated “cease striving” in some versions). What if instead of “how” questions, we approached the Bible with questions like, Who is God? Who is life? Who is love?

Beholding Jesus

I think when Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and Martha scurried around working, Mary was doing more than just learning from Jesus. I think she was enjoying him. I think she was delighting in his company, his voice, the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed at shared jokes. I think she saw more in his teaching than its substance and application; I think she saw him—his heart, his motives, his longings, his passions.

She was beholding him. As Paul writes, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17–18).

God gives the growth

Maybe I really don’t have a part in the show. Maybe I’m supposed to be in the audience, drinking in the wonder. Maybe I’m supposed to come to the Bible for a relationship with the living God, not just rules for godly living.

We Christians are much better at encouraging each other to be strong than to “be still” (Ps. 46:10).

After all, it’s not up to me to become the person God wants me to be; it’s up to him to make me into that person (1 Thess. 5:23–24). A seed doesn’t plant and tend itself. It just basks in the sun and drinks in the rain, and it becomes exactly what it was designed to become.

If this sounds passive to you, it’s not. Transformation is never passive.

We will gaze at God, and he will send us into battle. He will call us to deny ourselves. He will convict us of sin. He will upend our priorities. He will make us more like himself. And even as he does mighty things in and through us, we will be at rest from our own striving, anxiety, and condemnation.