Writing is a love. A passion. A joy. But it is not always easy. While I immensely enjoy the opportunity to share my heart, to be vulnerable and authentically me, there are times when I feel my deadline looming and I have yet to come up with my next topic. Insert stress. Insert the pressure to come up with the next great writing. But this time, I felt the invitation from my Father God to go outside of my comfort zone. To offer to you an article that is not spectacular or jaw-dropping. An article that is not a hot button topic. It is rather an invitation to be ok, with being ok.
I understand this thinking is likely not one that is widely celebrated and embraced, but I hope you will hear me out. I’m not saying we need to stop striving to better ourselves, or that we need to stop growing and becoming more of who God created us to be. I simply want to pause and ask the question: What is the motive in our striving to be amazing? What is the fruit that comes from that?
Pressure
In our culture today, I observe a pressure for everything to be big, bigger and biggest. Success is short-lived and you need to move on to produce more and be more. Social media pulls us into the toxic world of comparison, further fueling the fire to be amazing. For me, when someone asks what I “do”, I feel the pull to come up with a fancy way to say that I’m a mom. And when someone asks what God is doing in my heart, I feel as though I am failing if I can’t come up with a spectacular, miracle-filled story every time. It’s the pressure to be amazing all the time. And if that is the truest measurement of how I’m doing, well then, I guess I suck.
The fruit of my striving may look good on the surface, but at what cost? Is it sustainable to be amazing all the time? Do I need to choose between spectacular and horrible? Can there be an in-between? What if I were to try on easy? What if rather than killing myself to achieve the culture’s measuring stick of what amazing looks like, I allow myself to simply be? I allow myself permission to be ok with being ok and to sit in that place for whatever time is needed?
Truth
Here’s the truth. We are never just “ok”. To our Father God, we are beautiful. Chosen. His favorite. We are royalty. Captivating. His beloved. We are His masterpiece. Delighted in. His daughter. We are enough. We are loved. All. The. Time.
Throughout the coming ages we will be the visible display of the infinite, limitless riches of his grace and kindness, which was showered upon us in Jesus Christ. For it was only through this wonderful grace that we believed in him. Nothing we did could ever earn this salvation, for it was the gracious gift from God that brought us to Christ! So no one will ever be able to boast, for salvation is never a reward for good works or human striving. We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!
Ephesians 2:7-10 PT
