I'll try

The greatest battle in this life is not a struggle between God and the devil but a battle between myself and God. Everything within me wants to live independently of God, to make my own decisions, to determine my own version of right and wrong. The self-god attempts assert itself, creating a god in our own image.

I've recently noticed one of the manifestations of the self-god recently in conversations with people. A common phrase I hear is "I'll try..." I'll try to forgive. I'll try to love. I'll try respect. The starting point of "I'll try" is self.

Notice that scripture never tells us to try to love or to forgive. The expectation of God is that we love, that we forgive. Now I realize that we frequently feel like God demands the impossible and truly it is impossible to love from a center of self. Yet in the expectation of the impossible we become faced with our inability to to do the expected. In that place of inability, we can either draw close to God and allow Him to work the impossible into us or we can try to do the impossible in our own strength.

Unfortunately we do not possess the wherewithal to be what God expects. Quit trying and allow Him to transform you!