I was raised in the era of Do Hard Things and Don’t Waste Your Life, and while I certainly agree that we’ve only one life to live and that our time should be coupled with wisdom, my Type A, perfectionist, shame-leaning personality absorbed those messages as a heavy burden.
I guess I was less afraid of the work as a young woman who traveled the world, worked multiple jobs, served in numerous ways at church, devoted excessive amounts of time to workouts on ice and off, and stayed up late to pursue creative outlets. I may have worked myself to the bone, but I had the energy, and at the very least, being constantly on the go afforded me the chance to ignore the constantly lurking internal demons as well as the chance to believe that I could somehow outwork those demons and transform myself into an entirely different person.
Somehow, I managed to keep up that pace several years into motherhood, but when I found myself with three kids under three while still trying to run a small business 30 hours per week, muddling my way through a church situation that left me totally confused and questioning everything I’d ever known, and all the accumulated baggage of unaddressed internal chaos, I was absolutely drained–physically, emotionally, spiritually.
Without my on-the-go, never-say-no attitude, I suddenly found that I had nothing with which to validate myself to others and least of all to God.
I’d like to say I solved that problem right then and there, but I didn’t. I just kept trying to fix myself, change myself, prove myself, again and again and again. My work was to do better, be better . . . And as you might imagine, I never got the results I was working so hard for. Those were dark days, lonely days, angry days.
I lost count of the times I started praying with, “What do You want from me, God?!”
Weariness grew because the burden I’d picked up was crushing. In absolute exhaustion, I started to lay it down. I had no more energy and also nothing to lose but my literal life. In the process, I’ve found that most of prayers now begin with, “God, I need help. I need courage. I need peace. Here I am again, God, coming at You with need.”
I had thought that I’d get older, get stronger, and somehow have more to offer Him. But I am bringing need, which feels like failure, incapable of the work of God and all of those hard things I was going to go do for Him.
But, “Jesus replied, ‘This is the work of God: that you believe in the One He has sent.'”1
What if the work of believing in Jesus is the foundational work from which all else that God calls us to flows? It’s hard work, but it’s freeing work . . . My work is no longer proving my worth nor doing “enough” for God nor becoming a totally different personality that is more engaging, gregarious, and loud. My work is believing . . .
- That Jesus is who He said He is.
- That His boundary lines include the poor in spirit, the destitute, the broken, the needy, the imperfect.
- That He is good.
- That He is good to ME.
- That God is for me and not against me.
- That God created me to be a part of the people of His kingdom.
- That isolation is not God’s design.
- That Jesus doesn’t ask me to bring Him anything.
- That Jesus doesn’t NEED me to bring Him anything.
- That God sees me.
- That God loves ME, not a different version of me.
- That God is still speaking today.
- That God is moving.
- That God is always at work.
- That God hears me when I pray.
- That Jesus isn’t afraid of my humanity.
- That Jesus is willing and able to touch me.
- That Jesus covers my shame.
- That Jesus is my redeemer.
- That Jesus is my healer.
Believing that He came so that I might have abundant life. Believing that there is a place at God’s table for a person like me. Believing that He is so holy and so big, that He could take my shame on Himself and not be contaminated by it. Believing that He could make a way out of shame for me that would cost me literally nothing but my need of Him. Believing, in fact, that He welcomes my need, invites it even.
And as I work to believe these things for myself, I am believing all those same things for you too, friends. This work of believing seems so simple, but in practice, it is not, so I will now begin to pray, “I do believe! Lord, help my unbelief!”2
Cati Grape 