The Paradox of Effort and Fate

The sermon today circled back to the day Jesus was betrayed. Pentecost, I think? I’m not entirely sure. But what stuck wasn’t the date. It was the weight of what He said. That He knew. He knew what the disciples were going to do. That one would betray Him. That another would deny Him three times before the cock crowed. That the others would scatter like dry leaves in harmattan wind.

And still, He asked them to pray.

Pray that they wouldn’t fall into temptation. Pray not to be used by the enemy. Pray against something that was already written.

And it’s that part that hasn’t let me go.

Because if their fates were already sealed, if He already knew how the story would play out, why ask them to pray? Why tell them to fight what had already been foreseen? It feels like being told, “You’re going to drown, but keep swimming.”

It sounds cruel. But maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just... life. And maybe that’s what makes this life so hard to bear sometimes.

Because how do you live in a world that constantly tells you both things? That your story is already written and also that you should rewrite it. That some outcomes are fixed and also that effort changes everything. That people don’t change, but you should keep loving them. That some doors won’t open, but you should keep knocking anyway. That everything happens for a reason, but that reason might break your heart.

I don’t know how we’re supposed to hold all of that in one body. I don’t know how to manage that tension. I don’t know how to tell when I’m supposed to try harder and when I’m supposed to lay something down gently and walk away from it. I don’t know what to fight for and what to let go. And some days, that unknowing is its own kind of grief.

Because sometimes I wonder if I’m just wearing myself out, trying to fix things that were never mine to fix. If I’m bleeding effort into places that are already dried up. If all this “be better, try harder, pray more” is just noise. If the stillness I keep begging God to explain is His quiet way of saying, “This is one of those things you can’t change.”

But then, just as I start to settle into that sadness, I hear another voice whispering, “But what if you can?” And then I’m back in it again. Fighting. Praying. Trying.

There’s something deeply human in this struggle. That in-between. That push and pull between surrender and hope. Between acceptance and resistance. Between letting go and holding on so tightly it burns.

And maybe the hardest part is not even the outcome. It’s the waiting. The confusion. The not knowing. That quiet, exhausting helplessness that creeps in when you realize you don’t know what to pray for anymore. You don’t know what to change or what to accept. You don’t know what to leave in God’s hands and what to keep pushing through with your own.

It’s like sitting in the middle of a burning house, asking if this was always going to happen or if you could’ve done something to stop the fire before it started. And no one answers. No one ever answers.

So you keep moving. You keep praying. You keep trying. Even with no clear map. Even when your arms are tired. Even when the hope starts to feel hollow in your chest.

Because what else can you do?

I still don’t understand how fate and effort are supposed to co-exist. I still don’t know when to surrender and when to resist. I’m still caught in that loop, trying to understand what it means to live in a world where everything might already be decided, and yet, I’m still told to keep trying anyway.

And that’s where I am now. Tired. A little sad. Still showing up. Still confused. Still hoping that one day, something, anything, will make this contradiction make sense.