The Unexpected Path to Growth: How Your Struggles Can Deepen Your Faith
Have you ever been caught in a cycle that goes something like this?
You wake up determined: “Today will be different. Today I’ll conquer this sin. Today I’ll trust God completely.”
By mid-afternoon, you’ve failed. Again. The familiar weight of shame settles on your shoulders, and you find yourself thinking, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get this right? Other Christians don’t seem to struggle this much.”
And so you resolve to try harder tomorrow. To be more disciplined. To finally become the Christian you think you should be.
But what if I told you that this exhausting cycle isn’t just unnecessary—it actually misses the heart of the gospel?
The Surprising Truth About Our Struggles
For too many of us, struggles with sin and suffering feel like evidence that we’re failing at the Christian life. We assume that mature Christians don’t struggle like we do, or at least not with the same sins we face. And we believe the path forward is simply more effort, more discipline, more striving.
But what if our struggles—far from being obstacles to experiencing Christ—are actually doorways to deeper communion with Him?
This isn’t just wishful thinking. It’s the consistent testimony of Scripture.
Consider Paul, who pleaded with God three times to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” God’s response wasn’t, “Try harder” or “Be more disciplined.” Instead, He said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Or remember Peter, who after denying Jesus three times, was met not with condemnation but with a gentle restoration and a threefold commission to feed Jesus’s sheep.
The pattern is clear: our weaknesses are not barriers to God’s work in our lives but the very places where His grace shines most brightly.
The Heart That Draws Near When We Struggle
One of the most profound insights of Scripture is that Jesus is not repelled by our weakness. In fact, the opposite is true.
In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to me, all you who have gotten your act together.” He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
As Dane Ortlund beautifully expresses in his book Gentle and Lowly, “The sins of those who belong to God open the floodgates of his heart of compassion for us.”
This isn’t a license to sin, of course. But it is a reminder that when we do sin, we run to Christ rather than away from Him. Our failures don’t disqualify us from His presence—they’re precisely why we need His presence.
Gospel-Driven Sanctification
Many of us operate with a subtle but dangerous assumption: the gospel saves us, but our sanctification (our growth in holiness) depends primarily on our efforts.
But this misunderstands both the gospel and sanctification. The same grace that justifies us also sanctifies us. The same Christ who died to forgive our sins lives to heal them.
Consider Galatians 3:3, where Paul asks, “Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?”
The point is clear: Our growth in Christ isn’t powered by human effort alone but by continuing to rest in and respond to the finished work of Christ. We don’t graduate from grace to law, we simply go deeper into the inexhaustible riches of Christ.
Practical Steps for Grace-Driven Growth
So what does this look like practically? How do we embrace a vision of sanctification that’s driven by grace rather than by guilt and striving? Here are four suggestions:
1. Run the Right Direction
When you sin, notice your first instinct. Is it to hide from God until you can “fix yourself”? Next time, try the counterintuitive approach: run immediately to Christ with your failure.
Pray honestly: “Lord, I’ve failed again. But instead of hiding in shame, I’m bringing this straight to You. Show me Your heart toward me right now.”
2. Replace “Try Harder” with “Trust Deeper”
When facing temptation or failure, our natural response is to grit our teeth and try harder. But what if instead, we paused to remember and trust the character of Christ?
Instead of saying, “I need to be stronger,” try saying, “Jesus, I need to see Your strength and beauty more clearly right now.”
3. Let Your Struggles Deepen Your Compassion
Our own struggles with sin and suffering give us unique insight into the struggles of others. As Paul writes, God “comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).
How might your current struggles be preparing you to extend grace to someone else?
4. Meditate on Christ’s Heart Toward You
Our view of Jesus profoundly shapes how we approach Him in our struggles. If we see Him primarily as disappointed or frustrated with our failures, we’ll naturally avoid Him when we fail.
Take time this month to meditate on passages that reveal Christ’s heart toward struggling sinners: His gentle restoration of Peter, His compassion for the woman caught in adultery, His friendship with tax collectors and sinners.
An Invitation to Freedom
If you’re exhausted from trying to earn what Christ has already freely given—His love, acceptance, and delight—I invite you to lay down that burden.
The Christian life isn’t about striving to become worthy of God’s love. It’s about learning to rest in the love He already has for you in Christ, and allowing that love to transform you from the inside out.
Your struggles aren’t proof that you’re failing at the Christian life. They’re opportunities to experience more deeply the heart of Christ who came not for the healthy but for the sick, not for the righteous but for sinners.
And that’s good news indeed.