Just Try Harder!
I don’t know about you, but growing up I heard the words “Just Try Harder” often from coaches, teachers, and my parents. You see I was the average kid that was OK at a lot of things but not necessarily a stud at anything. Therefore, instead of batting 2nd or 3rd in the line-up I batted 8th or 9th. You see I could play but not at the level I or others wanted. Therefore, I was sent on a mission to “Try Harder”. I spent hours at the batting cage, watched my all-time favorite player Ozzie Smith over and over, I would listen to coaches and my dad, but it never really clicked. One day the baseball coach from our local high school came and watched my team practice and caught eye of me getting frustrated in hitting the ball. He watched, observed, then approached me and simply took my front foot and moved it out more opening up my stance. This way I could see the ball with both eyes instead one. (Who knew a few months later I would be fitted for glasses?) First pitch? It went sailing..
Seth Godin, one of my favorite authors wrote this about “Trying Harder”:
“The usual mantra is to ‘try harder’. Trying harder is impossible when you’re already trying as hard as you can.
But you can always try different.
Years ago, I was creating trivia questions for a product we built for Prodigy. We had a 99% accuracy rate in doing the questions. Which was great, except there were 1800 questions in a batch, which meant 18 wrong each time, which was totally and completely unacceptable. These were honest mistakes, made by smart people working as hard as they could.
No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t do better than 99%. So we switched our system completely and did it in a totally different way. Same number of people, same number of hours, 100% accuracy.
I just wonder if this might be true of us and our desire to follow Christ? I know even in my own spirituality I have been counseled to just try harder. Our churches have tried harder to be relevant and reach more people using contemporary services, meeting in coffee shops, creating movements and more. But what if trying harder doesn’t work? Maybe it is time to try something different!
Any suggestions?
March 17th, 2010 at 8:56 am
Your comments about “Just Try Harder” even having meaning when you are the best player. I identified because sometimes growing up everyone thought you could just do it naturally. So at times people felt I was not trying my hardest but I was. It had a reverse affect on me where I didn’t care to give my all or best because, I knew I would be told no matter what happened they would say “Just Try Harder”.
Putting into a spiritual perspective yes I hear this from Christian leaders saying to men who struggle with pornography “Just Try Harder” or “Just Pray Harder”. Most times this has no effect other than these men go deeper into secret places. When grace is extended which is something different most times they want to make a change. So I agree we do need to try something different!
March 17th, 2010 at 9:11 am
When the church says “just pray harder” or “Read more scripture” I think that really means we don’t have the answers. It may also mean I am struggling as well and I haven’t beat it so let’s give the obvious Christian answer so I can look like a good pastor. I think we are more concerned about our image and giving the right biblical answer instead of something different that might not have a overtly Christian ring to it like counseling. Therefore, we push people further and further away. I am tired of trying harder and I am sure others are as well. Thanks Brent…
March 17th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Your statements are so true! Just recently I was speaking with a mega church and we were discussing pornography within the church and one of the pastors said we have forgotten the idea of Holiness in the church. I took that to mean that God is not happy with our mess so I reminded him that Holiness and Grace go hand in hand. We need to surround people with love and grace because that is what our Heaven Father has done for us.
Great Blog Scott!