What to do when you believe you should be doing more

In college, I interned for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and wrote press releases that covered rounds of people showing their cattle, sheep, and chickens. It was all pretty uneventful until I momentarily left, came back, and forgot how to navigate my way back to the press area. I found myself inside the Longhorn corral, which is not where an Aggie wants to find herself. As the Longhorns grew more agitated, horns started swinging and hooves started pawing. I was trapped, so I started screaming for help. A seemingly unconcerned cowboy said, “Get to the railing and climb over it.” Cowboys give practical advice.

And while I’m not taking on a corral of angry bovines everyday, this experience of getting stuck in a hostile place has helped me understand another situation that a lot of us experience daily.

We trap ourselves in the belief that we should be doing more and that what we’re doing isn’t enough.

As Achievers, we give ourselves a whole list of things that we should be doing, like: We should bring the new mom dinner, volunteer at church/in our community, and do more to stand up for refugees/orphans. What’s confusing is that these things are oriented around serving and loving and caring—they’re things that Jesus calls us to do. And we think that we could be doing all of these things if we could just get it together.

On top of this list of things we should be doing for Jesus, we add our own preferential shoulds:
* Dinner should be homemade.
* We should be a better friend.
* We should accept every invitation.

In this confined space of should, we buck up against accepting these three realities:

1. The reality that we’re human. We’re training up children, caring for husband and home, working hard at our full-time job, and honoring the commitment to volunteer in the nursery. We’re living our lives and doing our best to steward it well, yet we tell ourselves that the good we’re doing isn’t enough.
2. The reality that we’re in a challenging season. Achievers, those who depend more on self and less on the God of amazing grace, believe that no matter what season we’re in, we should still be doing all the things. We overwhelm ourselves with much busyness and little grace.
3. The reality that God’s Word isn’t a to-do list. We revert to rule-following because we want a checklist to show us what to do, but instead, it reminds us of all the ways that we’re failing. Yet we feel that our job is to perform for him, not to be in relationship with Him.

Thankfully Jesus releases us from the corral of our shoulds so that we’re free to love Him.

In John 12, Mary poured extremely expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet, so Judas pipes up with, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been given to the poor.” But Jesus steps in and admonishes Judas while reassuring Mary of His love for her.

Mary gave her perfume to Jesus because she was pouring her heart out to Him. Mary doesn’t hold anything back from Jesus. What’s rumbling in your heart that you’re holding back from Him?

Judas slithers in with the language of our enemy—should. Should is code for “You’re not good enough, so get it together.” Shoulds are one-size-fit-all obligations. Shoulds don’t take into account your season, your capacity, your emotional state, your family dynamics. Shoulds say that there is no grace and that you must power through. What are you telling yourself that you should do, and is it in alignment with what Jesus has invited you to do?

Jesus says something jarring but so freeing, “You will always have the poor among you, but you won’t always have me.” (John 12:7) His point is that we’ll always live in a world with needs, hurts, sorrow, and pain, but it’s not our job to solve them all. Our goal is not to copy Jesus, but to respond to His invitation to come. Our primary purpose is to glorify Him. While the enemy uses the language of should, Jesus uses the invitation to come. What does it look like to glorify God right where you are: in the place He called you and with the people He’s given you?

The reason we’re doing all the shoulds is that we’re looking around to see what others are doing or we’re looking at ourselves to see how we’re doing so we’re not looking at Jesus who tells us to love Him, trust Him, and obey Him.

To be clear, I’m not saying that your reality and season give you a free pass.

Just because life is hard doesn’t mean that we are exempt from loving, serving, and caring. What I am  saying is that shoulds don’t come from Jesus. I’m saying that you don’t have to stay trapped in a place you never intended to stay.

I’ve often felt that if I didn’t have a should to guide me, that I wouldn’t know what to do. But when your primary objective is to gaze at Jesus, He’s kind enough to show you what’s next. God convicts over specific issues and sins. He doesn’t give us a general feeling that we should be doing more. He may tell you that it’s time to sit by still waters in green pastures, to serve in a place that seems out of your comfort zone, or to order pizza for the family with the new baby…not personally deliver a scratch-made lasagna.

You don’t want to get trapped with Longhorns, and the same goes for should. The next time you find yourself caught in the corral, release your shoulds to Jesus and spend time with the One who is grounded in love. He’ll direct you to rest, to serve, or to stay right where you are. It’s time to break free from the confines of should and run wildly toward His invitation to come.

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