When our oldest was in kindergarten, I was one busy woman doing for God. I was on staff at our church as the children’s pastor and the room mom for our older daughter. I attended one Bible study group while leading another. It was a season of doing All The Things.

Today, I do less. My new focus is learning how to be with God and do for Him instead of just focusing on the doing.

To be clear, doing for God is good.

We’re called to mobilize the commands of Christ, like visiting the imprisoned, carrying burdens for the overwhelmed, and serving the least of these. Doing for God is good and right.

And yet, we abuse these God-activities by using them as a means to escape or to measure our worth.

Doing for God can be used as an escape.

We’re good at staying busy with small groups, volunteering and other ministries. We prefer speed to solitude, action over examination, and numbness to healing.

But I wonder if we can relate to what Peter Scazzero said in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality “Using God to run from God is when I create a great deal of ‘God-activity’ and ignore difficult areas in my life God wants to change.” (The FCC requires that I tell you that I’m an Amazon Affiliate, which means I earn a bit of commission on each sale. But don’t worry there’s no added cost to you!)

Here are some clues that you may be doing God-activities to hide from Him:

  • You do things God never asked you to do.
  • You hide behind “God talk” so you can deflect any comments about your failures, mistakes, or sins.
  • You compete with others (but only in your head!) who are also doing for God.

If sin is anything that separates us from God, could we count our busyness as sin? All our God-activities may not allow us time to connect with the One who loves us most.

Doing for God can be used to measure our worth.

We’re good at believing that ministries will fall apart if we’re not serving. Our worth is found in holding everything together.

Here are some clues that your God-activities are the source of your worth:

  • You need the approval of others that you’re doing good work.
  • You feel good about serving because you know you’re needed. You also feel badly when you say “no” to a service opportunity.
  • You believe that you won’t, or can’t, fail.

As Scazzero writes, “Our experiential sense of worth and validation gradually shifts from God’s unconditional love for us in Christ to our works and performance. The joy of Christ gradually disappears.”

If our joy is in Christ but we’re joyless, could we count all our doing as a joy-stealer? All our God-activities may not allow us time to understand that our worth isn’t in the doing but in being who we most fully are.

Doing for God is only part of our life in Him.

We are really good at only hearing one part of what Jesus says to us. When our natural inclination is to improve, perform, or help, we forget that Jesus also called us to forsake, rest, and receive.

We are really good at forgetting that God is a God of and: grace AND truth, salt AND light, shepherd AND king.

So how do we, as try-hard girls, embrace the AND-ness of Christ? How do we break free from escaping and measuring? Try-hard friends, it all starts with how we view God.

Doing for God can give us an inaccurate view of Him.

We are really good viewing God inaccurately when we’re overwhelmed with God-activities. We see Him as:

Policeman who waits to catch us doing something wrong.

Parent who uses guilt and fear to get us to do what He wants.

Taskmaster who’s never satisfied and always disappointed.

What if we saw God, not as a policeman, but as a shepherd guiding us in love? What if we saw God as our perfect Heavenly Father who coaches us to our full-potential? What if we saw Him as the ultimate CEO who matched our gifts with the world’s gaps and picked out the best work for us?

I wonder what I would have said if I had asked myself during my season of doing All the Things “Who do you think God is?” I likely would’ve answered, “someone who is never satisfied, doesn’t care that I’m tired, and wants my hands and not my heart.”

I wish I could reverse time and tell her how wrong she is, that God is good, gracious, and kind. That God is our refuge not escape. That He counts us worthy no matter how much (or little!) we do. That resting is to complement all the doing. That God is no taskmaster, but our perfect Heavenly Father.

Before, I was one busy woman for God. Now I’m coming to understand that He wants my heart and my hands.

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