It’s easy to feel like I should be doing more, praying more, understanding more, being better somehow.
Curious if others wrestle with that, or if you’ve found a way to feel more at peace with where you are.
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Yes! I have struggled with that since my beginning with Jesus. I have not ever felt like ‘I arrived’ at doing enough, reading His word, talking to Him in prayer, fasting, still time with Him, and I feel like there is something else that I could be doing for Him. Anything to help.
There’s no confusion about salvation here, it has nothing to do with salvation. It has to do with our station living in the heavenly community of Believers who were saved. Some will be called the least in heaven. Others be highly exalted and always get to sit next to Jesus. I’m no Moses but (figuratively speaking) I don’t want to be the plumber again. Nevertheless, the more good deeds and Godly living walking with the Lord and bringing people to the Lord and planting seeds everywhere we go will affect our station in heaven.
At first, He had saved my life so I let Him save my soul too, and I was thinking, I don’t care if I am the doorman and last in Heaven, at least I’ll be there…but that didn’t last too awful long and I felt it. But when he saved my life I broke my back and so, I can not walk far, stand up for 8 hours, it took a lot of wind out of my sails. And I had wrecked my new truck at the same time so I wound up with a junker for the meantime, but it was a fix or repair daily almost, lol. And I wanted to Help the Lord in any way…so I prayed and was honest. I said Lord can you give me something to do that I can help you too? But Lord, I can’t walk door to door or reliably drive any more so can you make it something that I can do for you from my easy chair? …
I really prayed that! But that’s where I was at, and you know what? Within seconds of saying Amen, my phone rang. An old friend that I hadn’t seen in 2 years. Hey Ed long time no see, mind if I stop by and pick your brains about God? !!!
The Lord answered my prayer so fast! He came by and I answered all his questions and planted some seeds. The Lord knows if they took. That was nice, but it didn’t last. Again, I’m feeling it today. Now I thought about it a lot (and prayed some) and I have come to the conclusion that, we could be scholars and study the entire Bible our entire lives and be very welll versed in it, however, I bet anyone one digital donut that we will still be studying the same Bible in Heaven, the right translation with no omissions! Scripture says it will never pass away and it was written so geniusly that we might never learn it all!
So I read more and pray more to Him and humble myself by fasting annnd…no one is calling to come pick my brains about God now. I’m dirt poor on SS and I have no congregation or anything of the sort, and have the thorn in my side (back) which keeps me clinging to the Lordbut I have nothing except a lot of time. So as I sit in poverty, I grow rich in the word and my relationship with Him (<is that enough?!) So I am concluding that He keeps pointing me to a deeper intimacy with Him and I have the time to do it. We are very short on time so my efforts are towards reading, praying, fasting and relationship with Him which is not a heavy yoke, just like He said!
Maybe it is a spirit of doubt coming with those thoughts? Maybe it is our Conscience, our God?
Perhaps I have entered into God’s rest? I hear a lot of testimonies of the Lord using people during the night watches. Taking them in spirit all over the world and giving them tasks to do. One man went back in time ti when the Black Plague was all over and he got to bring a dying mother to Christ and pray with her…(Whoa). He said He prayed and asked the Lord how is that even possible for me to help someone before I was born? And the Lord told him, I wrote it in the book that way! (Wow!)
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I think many wrestle with this from time to time and the problem is that it’s the wrong question. I know the answer, but getting there is a different story. Paul best explained it best in Galatians 2:20.
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
I’m reading a book called “They Found the Secret” and it’s subtitled: The exchanged life. It’s not a big book and it details the lives of 20 Christians who also had the same question and what happened to change their worry and strive to peace and rest.
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Oh yes, I feel like this so often in many different spheres of life—work, being a mom, my faith, my church, my kids’ school, and on and on.
It’s so tough in an era that prizes multi-tasking to slow down and truly believe that we are doing enough. I have seen an encouraging trend in the parenting space in the past few years of emphasizing that even if all you did that day was keep your children alive and fed, that is important work (!), and it is enough. It’s easy for me to fall into the trap of doing more and more and then getting stressed or burned out.
One small thing I try to do that often helps is to simply visualize being in the current moment: taking a deep breath, focusing on my physical senses—the sunlight, a warm cup of coffee, birdsong, whatever it is. Then picturing myself simply sitting wherever I am, with the earth that God created holding me up. That is usually very grounding and helps me make a small mental shift to reorient myself to what is truly important in that moment, for that day.
It’s a constant struggle, though, to be a Mary not a Martha!
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