This last week I had the flu. It sapped me. I felt like my childhood hamster after a long night of action on the squeaking hamster wheel. It wore me out. I'm still recovering.

Speaking of the ole hamster wheel, I hope you'll allow me to digress for a minute.

If you asked me to summarize the themes of my preacher's sermons, it would be something like this:

1. Stop doing naughty things.

2. God is watching, and He is not happy.

3. Keep trying, but it won't be enough.

Since my earliest recollection I have been sitting in the pews. In my youth it seemed the preachers were grossly overweight and angry, although they pretended not to be angry. They shouted toward the end of their messages. It felt terrible. They scared me.

Later, during my early teens, the preachers were less angry and more academic. They knew a little about ancient languages, understood how to parse a text and yelled less. These were more palatable, but most still used fear to motivate us to line up. It felt a little less scary but I still knew I could never measure up.

Next came the guys with the outlines. Five Steps To Knowing God's Will. Four Ways to Find God's Mate for You. One of these groups held national events, where an unmarried man told millions how to be happily married, raise perfect kids, and live right with God in his easy-step seminars. (That organization is now battling harassment lawsuits from multiple women.) Again, I felt guilty and again, not enough.

In my mid-30's and listless, I heard Dr. Larry Crabb sum it up for me. He said many sermons are boiled down to a theology of "…do more and try harder".

That so resonated with my pummeled and wearied heart. I immediately saw the hamster-wheel pattern in my life. God will never be pleased. Exhausted described me. But my job was to keep trying. Be more humble. Squeak. Pray more. Squeak. Read more. Squeak. Give more. Squeak. Serve more. Squeak. It finally wore me out.

The Greeks had a story about a fellow named Sisyphus. He was a cunning manipulator and in the end, punished with hard labor for his ploys. He was to spend eternity pushing a large boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down. He would then start again in a never-ending hamster wheel.

Although that story is myth, it illustrates what so many have experienced. It's never enough.

Finally, I met people of grace and stepped off the hamster wheel. They seemed to laugh well and often. They were not living under condemnation and guilt. Their children had a healthy lightness about them. They were more honest than I ever dared to be. Sin did not run their lives. Fear did not control them. They weren't worried about whether God loves them. They knew it and rested in it. I wanted what they had.

It has taken years to undo the decades of ‘do more, try harder” language in me. It has taken multiple hours of good conversations with strong men and women about the honest places in my heart that I thought God could never see. The posing, pretending and duality of my childhood is gone. I have stepped out from under that endless rock pushing and off the hamster wheel.

So often we call the Gospel what it rightly is: The Good News. However, when we listen to sermons it often sounds like bad news. It seems like we are required to submit to a whimsical, insecure, bully and angry God who is never satisfied. So we develop systems and steps, institutes and books, about doing more and trying harder. It might be wrapped in a smile or gentle tones these days, but it is the same message. And we pass it on to our kids. We tell them the good news calls them to get on the Hamster Wheel.

The real Good News is that Jesus satisfied the Father. Finished. Done. Truth is, we do not have to Do More-Try Harder to please God. We can't. It will kill us. It has killed some of you. It nearly killed me. It nearly killed the Hebrews before us.

God is already thrilled with us because of Christ.

Join me in the grace of Good News. God loves us and accepts us beyond our imaginations. Relax. Exhale. Jesus paid it all. Go live in the joy of the Good News and grace and love of a kind Father.