It was funny at first. When we had to start rescuing them from the weak summer swell it lost its humor. When they crowded the beaches and messed with “our” waves, it began to get painful. It was clear they didn’t know what they were doing. They weren’t fit, they were unacquainted with the ocean, unprepared, and they lacked a realistic assessment of their own ability. Funnily enough, they began exactly the same way I had!

Surely if you really meant it you jumped in the deep end and thrashed around until you learnt, the hard way? Surely if you really meant it you didn’t give yourself the freedom to take a small step, to not have it all together? Surely, if you really meant it, you didn’t practice the small things, the boring disciplines that seemed to make no sense until you were in amongst the waves? Surely you didn’t learn in an environment of mutual concern and encouragement?

Looking back it’s clear my fourteen-year-old attitude dripped with pride. Pride from the beginning. Pride that I didn’t practice any small disciplines, or wear the flouro wetsuits, and pride that I had “made” it and I could surf, eventually. The translation to the Christian life is, uncanny!

Try-Hard Spirituality is characterized by the word “do”. It hears a sermon preached or reads something from scripture and so desires to live it out. It sees the picture of how things could be and exclaims, “That’s what I want to be! That’s what I want to look like! In fact, I’m going to be like that tomorrow!” It hears about a marathon that is being run the next day, and decides to run in it, without having prepared for it. The sentiment behind this approach to living the Christian life appears honorable, but let’s examine its roots.

At the heart of this spirituality is pride. It says “I have something to offer - I can bring something to you Lord”. This certainly isn’t true, in fact God’s attitude towards pride is rather confronting (James 4:6). Try-hard spirituality is not attractive at all, it uses so much effort in maintaining an image rather than being authentic.

It sets itself up for failure, disappointment and disillusionment. Recently I heard a friend of mine say that he wasn’t going to church anymore because he was sick of messing up. For whatever reason he had concluded that church was for people who tried hard and succeeded---how the reality differs!

Try-hards often super-spiritualize particular areas of life (sacred) whilst dismissing others as evil---at best, neutral (secular). This doesn’t have eyes to encounter the creator in the “ordinary”. For example a character in a movie, a newborn baby, a jazz pianist, a meal with close friends, a walk along a beach---all of these are things that have spoken volumes to me about the Kingdom and led to rich encounters with God. A try-hard spends a lot of energy shouting the virtues of the word, and prayer---but fails to let God lead them simply through the world he created, pausing to encounter him and to grow towards maturity.

Train-Hard Spirituality is characterized by the word “yield”. It understands that it is God’s will and initiative to take a person on in the faith, in their personal growth and maturity. In fact God promises that the very fact that this journey of growth has started, is a sure sign of it’s completion (Philippians 1:6), we respond to God’s initiative.

Train-Hard Spirituality is effortless spirituality. By this I don’t mean it is easy, or it doesn’t cost. Rather, it is effortless like a fit surfer paddling into a wave or, in keeping with the recent Sydney Olympics, Ian Thorpe powering through the pool or Cathy Freeman running the 400m. The training that went on in the background, the yielding to their goal, allows them to look graceful and effortless in the actual event.

Effortless spirituality is attractive. It has a fluid and organic view of life and faith. It recognizes the big moves of God, but doesn’t limit him to them, and holds a keen eye for appreciating and encountering God in the small things.

Grace, we must learn, is opposed to earning not to effort.

Spiritual disciplines are not try-hard, they are a means of training, of yielding to God and where he wants to take us. Recently I battled with this question; if the Gospel is so powerful, how can a pastor who is exposed to it so much have an affair and allow it to go on for 18 months? The answer I came to is simple: the power of the Gospel is only realized in those who are open to it, those who yield to it. That means obeying his word, and being committed to growing in understanding and experience of God.

The challenge for the postmodern church is to be “…a poetic voice in a prose flattened landscape…” as Michael Frost eloquently encapsulates. Bring it on!