I have this on going wrestle with the fear that I am not enough. That I don’t do enough. I’m in a race; a race to outrun not being enough. It’s exhausting because try as I might I simply can’t outrun it.
So it’s no surprise that I woke up the other morning with that sinking feeling in my stomache. The one that knows before I’ve even tried I’m going to be defeated.
The girls had been at VBS all week so they were high on sugar and low on sleep. Add to it the night before Loren took them camping. High on fun, Low low LOW on sleep. Nyah had been battling a fever and just that night also developed additional symptoms.
Nope, today I knew I would not achieve “enough”. That hollow and frantic feeling settled heavy on me. I knew the truth. The truth that says I don’t have to work to earn anything…yet I still don’t quite know how to live it.
As I was wrestling with trying to figure out how to get rid of that yucky feeling that presses me to accomplish more– be productive– another thought hit me.
Instead of asking how much you can acomplish today, ask how much you can love.
The thing with accomplishments is they are never ending and yet they end all at the same time. When we measure ourselves by the things we do we will feel good when we accomplish something…for a tiny bit. But then that thing that was accomplished either becomes old news or it needs redone again.
For example I want to write a book. I know I will feel good when that’s accomplished. But the only book that has stood the test of time is the Bible. All other books decrease in popularity over time. Not only that, but I know I will be starting on another book shortly after. The task was accomplished but there’s more to do after that.
Nothing is ever enough because our entire life there will always be more to do. We never arrive. Accomplishments left unchecked are unending in a crushing way and only fulfilling in a temporary way. The struggle lies in this need to do things because we were made to work, but keeping in check why we work. How can what we do last? How can we let go of what we can’t get to and be content in what we can? How can we believe what we do matters–even if it doesn’t alway feel like it doe? I think the answer lies in the thing we all have access to. The thing we all have power to do regardless of circumstances. Not only is it both available and doable for us all, it is unending, eternal, and life giving.
Love.
When we do the things we do with hearts overflowing with the need and desire to love, not accomplish, it will pour out of us like water flowing. Water is unstoppable, ever present.
It’s heavy in the humid Illinois air. It condenses on my windows and makes me feet slip as I step outside to the patio. It’s so thick some days I think I may be able to drink it.
It’s gentle trickle provides daddy daughter bonding time as they wade through the local river casting and retrieving their fishing lines.
It flows freely from a spring into the river when said motley crew discovers it by stepping into a chilly portion of the water.
Thousands of drops of water rain down in a mid summer thunderstorm quenching the parched earth.
Waves splash on legs as we walk through the edges of an ocean or Great Lake.
The whole purpose of water is to bring life. This reminds me of a verse.
““For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV
I picture love like this. All the things I do will never be truly finished. Dishes will need done again, kids will need more character training, more books will need written. But when we begin to gage it not by how much we are accomplishing but by how much love is pouring into the things we do–like refreshing water—then we are doing something truly unending. Something we have power by the Spirit to do; always.
Love, like water, doesn’t return void. It accomplishes things. It keeps on giving. It produces fruit, quenches dry parched ground, and builds relationships. It goes places we can’t even see.
The surprising thing is, when I embraced this mentality that day that looked pretty accomplish-less something strange happened. I felt so much more accomplished at the end of the day, so fulfilled.
Life isn’t about how much we can accomplish, I believe it’s about how well we can love by the Spirits power.
Love is the thread that holds all we do together. If I do lots without love none of it holds together. It doesn’t transend me.
As I am writing a book, if I am pouring love into it, I believe long after that last page is read and the book is forgotten by culture, drops of love will have poured into the reader that continue flowing through their life, to another and another…no matter how small they be.
Long after the last mess for the day is (or isn’t) cleaned up and three sleeping beauties are nestled in bed, I believe the drops of love that fell on them today in patience, not striving, kindness not anger, will live on in them. Even if I didn’t accomplish all I thought I needed too.
Romans 2:4 says it’s the kindness (or goodness depending on translation) of God that leads to repentance. I can do a lot of good things that are filled with haste, impatience, or frustration. I’m beginning to see, they don’t lead to heart changes. But when we make time for love and kindness, even if not as much gets done, the impact is more than we can imagine or see.
It’s such a simple thing. Yet so unnatural to grasp in this do, do, do, culture we find ourselves in.
Instead of fighting for more accomplishments I’m going to fight for a new mentality. One that says how can I love today Lord? Then let that love, like water, pour out bound for places I may never see. Unending places. Eternal.
