Where the Shoulds Come From

Blog readers,

Does it feel like I am a one topic soapbox sometimes?  I feel like I am, no matter where I'm at spiritually it seems I always come up against the same wall of performance.  I do believe that we get caught up early in life in a lie that the rest of our journey towards being more Christlike has to correct.  For me that is perfectionism, Type-A, achievement.  I'll aways come back to this topic on my blog in some form or another.  It's the times when I have the most time to reflect and rest that I feel that tendency the most.  When the pull of where I am and where I want to be causes tension.  Here is an expert from my journal today.  I hope it blesses you!

Lately I've been feeling burdened by guilt.  Not conviction.  That is a huge distinction because as I've paid more attention to my inner voice I feel like there are a lot of "should" rolling around in my head.  Nothing from the Lord, where He is directing me a certain way, to give up something or stop something.  But it's been a challenge to really stop the self-expectations I put on myself.  I've found that often this is the thing that makes me feel like I can't rest or that I'm not worthy unless that internal mantra is silenced. 

I remember my first year teaching, how I had to learn to leave work at school because it's never done.  I've been realizing for me that home is like that too.  I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility and it's stressful how many things need to be done and how incapable I am on making a dent in it every day.  I married an easy-going guy so he doesn't feel the need to be productive as I do and it causes much strain on our marriage when I let my restlessness start to bleed into other people.  It's also when I'm most frustrated with my children, when they don't act like me.  I put this into the relationships that I most need to nurture and treasure.  I need to start viewing my home as that same thing as what I learned as a first-year teacher.  That is will never get done and never enough.  So often I chase the lie that when it all gets done I can rest.  The problem with believing that is that it never all gets done! I can't wait to rest until I have earned rest because I will never earn it.  Just like I can't wait to receive grace until I have earned it because I will never earn it.  

So where does it come from?  Where does the urges inside me to do come from?  How can I silence that sense of expectation imposed by myself that always seems to linger.  There is a root that I desperately want God to unearth and quiet so I can live more from a heart that is at peace with His presence and purpose in me.  

As I prayed, God brought Luke 10 to mind, where Martha and Mary respond differently to the Lord.  First I noticed that Martha was the one to welcome Him in, not Mary.  But after the welcomed Him she proceeded to be distracted by her preparations.  She was distracted...doing a task but other things on her mind.  Not being fully present.  And the tasks were her tasks, not God's tasks for her.  She didn't stop to ask Him what He wanted her to do.  How often do I continue on without asking God if the work I'm doing is what He wants for me?  This is also interesting, she came up to Him, He didn't go to her.  Instead He stayed present with the one who had made time for Him.  To listen and sit at His feet.  Is the reason that I don't feel rest is that God isn't going to chase me around as I distract myself with tasks but instead He waits for me to come to Him? In a true sense, not in the way of doing my bible study and prayer.  I'm so self disciplined in it, I admit sometimes I treat it like a task to accomplish instead of having an authentic time with Jesus.  She asks the Lord, if He cares that no one else is on the same hamster wheel that she finds herself on.  That Mary won't join her is wrong and she tells the Lord what to do!  She tells Jesus to command Mary to pick up the same wicked pace that she has set for herself.  I do this to my family when I put my burden on them.  I ask them to enter into a state that isn't giving me peace.  How is that fair to them? 

And she is not doing well.  I know because Jesus knows the heart.  He sees beyond her activity to what she is feeling.  He identifies she is worried and bothered about many things.  When I've read this story in the past, I've always noticed the activity  of the two sisters but not the inner state.  This is what Jesus is calling me to notice.  He's asking me not to stop my work because the reality of it is that I have to maintain things in my home.  He's asking me not be be worried and bothered about it. There is one thing that is necessary.  The one thing is to be with Jesus, attentive and listening.  All Mary did was choose it.  It doesn't say how she is feeling here, but I know how I feel when I've spent time with Jesus without distraction...alive, peaceful, trusting, safe, content.  I can only imagine that she feels those things too.  Because she chose this, He rewards her by saying it won't be taken away.  He won't command Mary to change, instead He shows her as an example of the kind of heart He wants His children to have.  

So where do I go from here?  Ask the Lord to change me and correct me when I start to travel down this path.  Meditate on Luke 10:42.  Stop treating my family like they should enter the crazy with me.  Be sensitive to when I've left the one thing for a distracted, anxious heart and by the grace of God it won't be taken away.