If you’ve been to any kind of sporting event, you’ve likely heard (or said yourself), “C’mon, let’s hustle!” Move faster, stay ahead of the game, git ‘er done.
Hustling is a high value in our society. Those who do get ahead. They win.
But hustling pays a price. When we do it for too long, it becomes the way we feel we must live in order to survive. There’s no peace, no finish line.
We begin to believe we are what we do. We depend more and more on our own strength. The hustling defines us.
And then probably somewhere along the way those who hustle fall down exhausted, because no one is meant to live that way for the long haul.
But then there’s grace. Imagine yelling that at a sporting event, “It’s all grace, baby!” Think what that would do (aside from stink eye from other parents).
Hustling might take us faster, but where does it leave us?
Maybe grace could take us farther.
Where Grace Takes Us
Grace takes us to freedom. It lets us fail, and get back up again, and in the process, we learn more.
Grace says slow is an acceptable, maybe even preferable, pace. It might take longer to get there, but we have stamina for the long haul.
Grace opens the door for us to be ourselves in ways hustling never allows. It tells us that we are a gift just as we are, not as we think we ought to be.
And grace invites others to join us on that journey. As the African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
We were made for grace, for a way of life that says, “you’re okay. Stop trying so hard. It’s been done for you. Relax into it.” So when we live in grace, we live like we’re home.
It’s hard to undo patterns of hustling. Hard to shut out the voices around us that say, “Prove your worth.” Grace sometimes feels too good to be true, like we’re letting go and just treading water.
But instead of treading water, maybe it’s learning to grab hold of the liferaft that’s always been there. It’s letting go of striving and resting in what’s been done for us. We stop our desperate swimming and walk to shore.
So today I want to see where I’m hustling-working hard to earn my place and prove my worth. And then I want to remember that grace is the better option. Let go. Be yourself. We’ll go farther this way.
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