When an economy suffers from inflation, the currency loses its purchasing power. To buy the exact same loaf of bread, you have to spend more money. People find themselves working longer hours just to maintain their standard of living. The effort increases, but the return diminishes. It is an exhausting cycle.
This exact phenomenon happens in our spiritual lives. We can call it spiritual inflation.
When our daily faith is not anchored to Jesus Christ, we have to work twice as hard to feel half as much peace. We might try to make up for a lack of spiritual depth by increasing our religious busyness. We volunteer for more tasks, fill our calendars, and exhaust ourselves trying to create our own security. But doing a high volume of good things on our own energy will never replace the rest that comes from the Savior.
Isaiah understood this exhausting cycle perfectly. In Isaiah 55:2, he asks a piercing question: “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”
When we treat the gospel merely as a cultural checklist, we are spending our labor on that which does not satisfy. We end up running a spiritual treadmill. We are moving fast and sweating profusely, but we are going nowhere.
The solution is not to stop working. The solution is to change who is backing our work.
Elder David A. Bednar explained how a connection to Christ changes our capacity. He taught, “Making and keeping sacred covenants yokes us to and with the Lord Jesus Christ. In essence, the Savior is beckoning us to rely upon and pull together with Him, even though our best efforts are not equal to and cannot be compared with His.” [Talk: Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease]
When we are yoked to the Savior, our spiritual currency is backed by His infinite power. We still put in effort, but that effort goes infinitely further. He magnifies our time, our energy, and our capacity. The work is no longer heavy because we are not pulling the load alone.
The Practical Takeaway
Audit your effort. Look at your daily habits and your religious routines. Are you running on a treadmill of cultural expectations, or are you pulling alongside Jesus Christ?
Pause before you act. Before reading your scriptures or serving in your calling today, take thirty seconds to ask the Lord to be with you in that specific task. Move from doing things for Him to doing things with Him.