Being vs. Trying — Why Walking by the Spirit Isn't What You Think
Every Christian knows they should 'walk by the Spirit.' Almost nobody knows what that actually means on a Tuesday morning. Paul lays out the difference between white-knuckling holiness and organic transformation — and it changes everything.
Part 4: Being vs. Trying
I need to tell you about the worst season of my faith.
Actually — “worst” isn’t the right word. It looked great from the outside. I was doing everything right. Bible reading every morning. Prayer journal. Church three times a week (because twice wasn’t serious enough). Small group. Serving team. Giving faithfully. I had the spiritual disciplines nailed down like a carpenter who bills by the hour.
And I was absolutely miserable.
Not the dramatic, crisis-of-faith miserable. The quiet, corrosive, nobody-can-tell miserable. The kind where you smile on Sunday and fall apart on Monday. The kind where your quiet time feels like an obligation and your prayers bounce off the ceiling and you can’t figure out why everyone else seems to have this abundant life Jesus promised while you’re running on spiritual fumes.
I was trying so hard. And the trying was killing me.
Because — and this is what I didn’t understand until Galatians 5 cracked me open — the Christian life was never designed to run on trying. It was designed to run on being.
And the difference between those two things is the difference between exhaustion and abundance.
The Verse That Reframes Everything
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Walk by the Spirit.
Not “try really hard to be good.” Not “muster up the willpower to resist temptation.” Not “discipline yourself into godliness through sheer effort.” Walk by the Spirit.
Walking is an interesting word choice. Paul could have said “fight by the Spirit” — and sometimes the Christian life does involve fighting. He could have said “run by the Spirit” — and sometimes it requires running. But the primary metaphor he chooses is walking.
Walking is ordinary. Walking is daily. Walking is putting one foot in front of the other, over and over, without dramatic effort. Nobody strains to walk (under normal circumstances). Nobody white-knuckles their way through a stroll. Walking is the most natural form of forward movement a human body can do.
That’s the metaphor Paul uses for the spiritual life. Not sprinting. Not climbing. Walking. One step at a time. In the Spirit. Daily. Ordinary. Sustainable.
And notice the promise attached: “you won’t fulfill the desire of the flesh.” Not “you’ll be immune to the desire of the flesh.” Not “the flesh will stop desiring.” You won’t fulfill it. The desire may still be there — whispering, pulling, doing what the flesh always does — but you won’t give it what it wants. Not because you’re stronger than it. Because you’re walking somewhere else.
The War Inside
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.
Paul acknowledges the conflict. He doesn’t pretend it away. The flesh and the Spirit are opposed to each other. They want opposite things. And the believer lives in the middle of that opposition.
But here’s what’s crucial: Paul doesn’t say “the flesh and the Spirit are evenly matched.” He doesn’t present this as a fifty-fifty coin toss where you might go either way. He says the conflict exists — and then immediately tells you how to live on the winning side of it:
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
“If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” The Spirit leads. You follow. That’s the dynamic. Not you leading and hoping the Spirit keeps up. Not you performing and hoping the Spirit approves. The Spirit leads — and your job is to follow.
Led. Not driven. Not forced. Not dragged kicking and screaming. Led. Like a shepherd leads sheep. Like a guide leads a hiker through unfamiliar terrain. The Spirit knows the way. You follow.
This is the fundamental shift from trying to being. Trying says: “I know where I need to go. I just need to get there.” Being says: “The Spirit knows where I need to go. I need to stay close enough to follow.”
The Identity Underneath the Behavior
This is where it gets deep. Stay with me.
The reason most Christians exhaust themselves trying to produce spiritual fruit is that they’ve made a category error. They think the Christian life is about behavior modification. They think the goal is to change what you do — from flesh-behavior to Spirit-behavior — through effort, discipline, and willpower.
But Paul is saying something much more radical. He’s not talking about changing your behavior. He’s talking about changing your identity. Or rather — recognizing that your identity has already been changed.
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.
I have been crucified with Christ. Past tense. Done. The old self — the one that was enslaved to the flesh, that could only produce the works of Galatians 5:19-21 — that self has been crucified. It’s dead. And the life you now live, you live by faith in the Son of God.
This isn’t a metaphor. This isn’t inspirational language. Paul is making an ontological claim — a statement about the nature of your existence. You are not the same person you were before Christ. The flesh is still present, still pulling, still demanding attention. But it is no longer you. The real you — the identity that defines you — is “Christ lives in me.”
And this is why trying doesn’t work.
When you try to produce spiritual fruit through effort, you’re operating from the wrong identity. You’re essentially asking the old self to produce new-self fruit. You’re asking the flesh to imitate the Spirit. And it can’t. It never will. It’s like asking an apple tree to produce oranges through sheer determination. The tree can try as hard as it wants. The fruit depends on the root.
But when you walk by the Spirit — when you recognize that Christ lives in you, that you are a new creation, that the Spirit of God has taken up residence in your actual body — then the fruit isn’t something you produce. It’s something that grows. Because the root has changed.
The Mind Set on the Spirit
Paul develops this further in Romans 8, and it’s the practical key to everything:
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;
The mind set on the flesh: death. The mind set on the Spirit: life and peace.
Notice: Paul doesn’t say “the mind that fights the flesh” or “the mind that resists the flesh.” He says “the mind set on the Spirit.” It’s about orientation. Direction. Focus. Where your attention lives.
This is the being-vs-trying distinction in its purest form. Trying says: “I need to not think about the flesh. I need to resist the flesh. I need to fight the flesh.” Which means — ironically — your entire mental energy is directed at the flesh. You’re thinking about the very thing you’re trying to not think about.
Being says: “I’m going to set my mind on the Spirit. I’m going to orient my attention toward Christ. I’m going to focus on the vine.” And when you do that — when your attention is genuinely captured by something better — the flesh’s voice gets quieter. Not because you silenced it. Because you’re listening to something else.
If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
Set your mind on things above. Not “fight against things below.” Set your mind on things above. It’s a positive orientation, not a negative resistance. You don’t overcome darkness by punching it. You overcome darkness by turning on the light.
What “Walking by the Spirit” Actually Looks Like
Okay. Theory is great. But what does this look like at 6:47 AM when the alarm goes off and you have a headache and your first meeting is with someone you can’t stand?
Here’s what I’ve learned — slowly, imperfectly, with a lot of wrong turns:
1. Start with Identity, Not Effort
Before you do a single thing, remind yourself who you are. Not who you were. Not who the flesh says you are. Who you actually are.
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.
The Spirit of God lives in you. That’s not poetry. That’s your operating system. Before you try to be patient or kind or gentle, start with this: The Spirit of the living God is in me right now. I am not alone. I am not operating on my own power. The vine’s life is already flowing.
This isn’t a magic formula. It’s a reorientation. It’s reminding yourself of the root before you worry about the fruit.
2. Practice Awareness, Not Willpower
Walking by the Spirit is more about attention than effort. It’s learning to notice. When irritation rises — notice it. When jealousy pricks — notice it. When anxiety starts spiraling — notice it. Not to judge yourself. Not to condemn the feeling. To notice — and then to turn your attention back to the Spirit.
Think of it like walking down a street. The flesh is a side alley that keeps calling your name. You can hear it. You might even glance at it. But you don’t have to walk down it. You can notice the alley, acknowledge it exists, and keep walking in the Spirit.
This is radically different from the white-knuckle approach, which says “Pretend the alley doesn’t exist. Clench your fists. Don’t look. Don’t look. DON’T LOOK.” That approach works for about fifteen minutes. The awareness approach works for a lifetime, because it doesn’t depend on your ability to suppress reality. It depends on your ability to choose where you walk.
3. Respond Instead of React
The flesh is reactive. It’s immediate. Something happens, and the flesh fires off a response before your brain has finished processing. The angry text. The cutting remark. The jealous thought. The anxious spiral. The flesh doesn’t wait for wisdom. It reacts.
Walking by the Spirit introduces a gap between stimulus and response. Not a long gap — sometimes just a breath. But in that gap, there’s room for a different voice. The Spirit’s voice. The one that says: You don’t have to react from the flesh. There’s another option.
Practically? It might mean pausing before you respond to the email that infuriated you. Taking a breath before you answer the question that triggered you. Putting the phone down before you type the comment that will feel satisfying for three seconds and harmful for three years.
The gap is where the Spirit works. The flesh hates the gap. The Spirit lives in it.
4. Stay Close to the Vine
This sounds so basic it almost feels insulting to include. But I’m including it because it’s the thing I forget most often.
Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
Remain. Stay close. Don’t drift.
The daily stuff — Scripture, prayer, community, worship — these aren’t religious obligations. They’re proximity practices. They’re how you stay close enough to the vine to keep drawing life. Not because God is distant and you need to earn your way into His presence. Because the flesh is loud and you need regular recalibration.
I don’t read my Bible in the morning because God will be angry if I don’t. I read it because by 6 AM the flesh has already started its pitch for the day — you’re not enough, you need to perform, you should be anxious about this, you should be angry about that — and I need a different voice. The vine’s voice. The one that says: You are mine. You are loved. You are free. Walk with me today.
5. Give Yourself Grace for the Process
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul — the apostle, the church planter, the guy writing the letters we’re studying — says “I haven’t arrived.” Not yet. He hasn’t reached the goal. He isn’t perfect. He still presses on.
Walking by the Spirit is a walk. It’s a journey. It’s progressive, not instant. You will have days where the flesh wins. You will have seasons where the fruit feels invisible. You will fall back into trying, into striving, into the old patterns of performance and self-reliance.
And when you do — when you notice you’ve drifted into trying instead of being — the answer is not to try harder. The answer is to come back. To reconnect. To remain.
But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.
We are being transformed. Present tense. Progressive. Ongoing. From glory to glory. It’s a process, not an event. And the Spirit is doing the transforming — not you.
The Verse That Ties It All Together
If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
If we live by the Spirit — and Paul assumes we do, since he’s writing to believers — then let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
“Keep in step.” I love this phrase. It’s a military term — soldiers marching in formation, matching their pace to a shared rhythm. But it’s also intimate — two people walking together, naturally falling into the same stride.
The Spirit sets the pace. You match it. Not ahead of the Spirit — rushing, striving, producing on your own. Not behind the Spirit — dragging, resisting, holding back. In step. Together. The Spirit’s rhythm becoming your rhythm. The Spirit’s direction becoming your direction.
This is the being Paul has been pointing to all along. Not trying harder. Not performing better. Not white-knuckling your way through the Christian life. Keeping in step. Walking with the Spirit the way you’d walk with a friend — attentive, present, responsive, in sync.
Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
And notice what immediately follows: don’t be conceited, don’t provoke one another, don’t envy one another. Paul knows that even the concept of “walking by the Spirit” can become a competition. I walk by the Spirit better than you do. That’s the flesh masquerading as spirituality. The Spirit doesn’t produce comparison. The Spirit produces love.
The Zechariah Principle
Let me leave you with the verse that has become the anchor of my spiritual life:
Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, “This is Yahweh’s word to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says Yahweh of Armies.…”
Not by might. Not by power. By my Spirit.
The whole Christian life, compressed into nine words. Not by your effort. Not by your discipline. Not by your performance, your willpower, your impressive spiritual resume. By the Spirit. The Spirit who lives in you. The Spirit who is the life of the vine flowing through the branch.
You are not called to try harder. You are called to stay closer. Not by trying but by being. Not by performing but by remaining. Not by might, not by power, but by the Spirit of the living God.
But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. That’s your power source. That’s your operating system. That’s the vine that produces the fruit. Not your effort. The Spirit. Already in you. Already working. Already producing.
Your job isn’t to generate the power. Your job is to stop resisting it. To walk in it. To keep in step with it. To be who you already are — a branch connected to the vine, a child indwelt by the Spirit, a new creation alive with a life you didn’t earn and can’t lose.
That’s the Christ-shaped life. Not shaped by your striving. Shaped by His Spirit. Living in you. Producing through you. One step at a time.
Reflect
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Be honest: does your spiritual life feel more like trying or being? More like white-knuckling or walking? What would it look like to shift from effort to presence this week?
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“Set your mind on the Spirit.” What does your mind default to? When it’s unoccupied — in the car, in the shower, lying awake at night — where does it go? What would it look like to redirect that default toward the Spirit?
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Think about the gap between stimulus and response. Can you identify a recent moment where you reacted from the flesh instead of responding from the Spirit? What would the Spirit’s response have looked like? How might you create more “gap” next time?
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Paul says “keep in step with the Spirit.” Where are you out of step? Ahead of the Spirit, rushing and striving? Behind the Spirit, dragging and resisting? What would it take to match the Spirit’s pace?
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Read Galatians 2:20 slowly. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” If that’s true — if the vine’s life is already in you — what changes about the way you approach tomorrow morning?
Coming Up Next
We’ve covered freedom, flesh, fruit, and now the walk itself. But there’s one more piece — the piece that ties Galatians 5 to the passage that started it all.
In our “Remain in Me” series, we explored John 15 — the vine and branches. Jesus said remain, and the fruit will come. Paul says walk by the Spirit, and the fruit will grow.
Same truth. Two angles. One life.
In our final part, we’re going full circle. The vine of John 15 produces the fruit of Galatians 5. And the life they describe — the Christ-shaped life — is waiting for every branch willing to stay connected.
Next: “Full Circle — The Vine and the Fruit (And Why You Were Never Meant to Do This Alone)”