This resolution is actually encouraging you in the opposite direction of perfectionism. It’s encouraging you to cut back, to engage in only those activities in which God’s glory will be seen in this season of your life, and then apply yourself more fully to those. Most likely you don’t have a poor work ethic or bad character. You’re just allowing yourself to be pulled in too many different directions. As a wise friend once said to me, “Priscilla, you cannot do a thousand things to the glory of God, but you can do one or two.” And though she said it in jest while observing my crammed schedule and scattered priorities, her sentiments still hold true. When you choose to do everything, you can’t do anything well. But when honoring God is your focus, it pares down your purpose and narrows your focus.
And for the record, doing things well is something you can do!
The Bible promises it.
Why else would Paul admonish us to accept his “whatever you do” encouragement as a living reality—not just once, but again in Colossians 3:17: “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him”?
He said it because it’s true. If you and I will take the time to zero in on our unique, divinely given set of “whatever you do” qualities (as I encouraged you to do with your authentically me resolution) and then commit to bring them wholeheartedly to the tasks the Lord has given us, He will help us not only accomplish those tasks sufficiently but also in a way that brings Him glory. Trying to do what someone else has been commissioned to do will not honor God, no matter how well we try to do it. At best we’ll be imposters, emotionally deflated and physically exhausted from trying to live someone else’s life. But when we consecrate and commit our gifts to Him in this current phase of life, we’ll see that He will empower us to use them in a way that will yield honor and glory to Himself. You can be confident that what you have to offer, when focused on honoring Him instead of impressing or imitating others, will bring your best to the forefront.
What you can do—yes, you!—is good enough.
Did you hear me?
Good.
This might be news to you, especially if your natural inclination is to wish you could do things like her, like them. Maybe then “God would get a little glory out of this life of mine.” But Paul’s instructions and this resolution are not meant to inspire you to become like somebody else—to start doing more of the things they do, more like they do them. It’s calling for “whatever you do.” There is value in the unique way that you mother your children, love your husband, do your job, oversee that committee, participate in that organization, and spend your time. It’s what you do. It’s how you do it. And that’s what He has promised to undergird with His power, causing Himself to be magnified through your actions.
My mom had to come to this realization as a young pastor’s wife. She got the idea (after some not-so-subtle suggestions) that she was supposed to fit a certain profile in her highly visible position. She was to play the piano, lead the choir, run the women’s ministry, and dress like Jackie Onassis to boot. That’s what others thought she should do. Yet much of this was not what God had equipped her or called her to do. She could not possibly engage herself actively in everyone’s expectations and do any of them with much success. So instead of trying to do what other pastors’ wives had done or were doing, or what every single person in the congregation was expecting of her, she decided to consider carefully what she had been gifted to do and how she could do those particular things with all her might, as unto the Lord.
Mom found her “whatever you do” spot—the one where you can actually experience the joy of doing “everything for God’s glory.”
So take a second to consider what God has uniquely equipped you to do, as well as what He’s asking of you (and what He’s not asking of you) at this particular season of life. Instead of focusing on what you can’t do, why not carefully consider how to capitalize on what you can do in a way that will tap into God’s presence and power? Then no matter what day it is, no matter how old you are, no matter what the moment demands, you can be yourself, fully believing that your personal “whatever you do” is fulfilling the purposes of God and will bring Him honor.
In anything and everything.
And here’s something else: the message of Paul’s verse—“whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do”—suggests that we shouldn’t wait until matters are more important before honoring God becomes our primary goal. I mean, eating and drinking don’t sound too spectacular on the importance scale. Hardly anything could be more regular, mundane, and ritualistic. But nothing in God’s eyes is too menial to be considered worthy of our wholehearted devotion. Everything He has purposed for us to participate in—every little thing—is a fresh, available opportunity for His glory to be seen through us, through you. Therefore, the task set before you right now holds the potential for bringing honor to the Lord. That’s why He’s given it to you. Yes, the paperwork and computer details of your desk job. Yes, your participation in the women’s conference steering committee. Yes, the changing of another dirty diaper. Yes, the small deed of kindness to your spouse.
Don’t save your best for later.
Don’t wait to finish school, reserving your best work for whenever you land a real job that’s actually taking you somewhere. Don’t wait until you’re married when the things you do will feel more like they’re contributing to building a home and a life. Don’t wait until you start a family, thinking you’ll be more inspired to give your best when you have children to invest in. Don’t wait until your kids leave the nest, biding your time until you’re freer to pour yourself into the next challenge.
Scout out what God’s Spirit is compelling you to do, and believe that if He called you to it, He will empower you to do it in a way that brings honor to Him. Then cooperate with Him. Bring your best to it right now. Right here. Right away.
I learned this lesson from my friend Tina. She never did anything halfway. When Tina did something, everybody knew it. If she agreed to help you out, you could be sure you’d get everything Tina had to give. Fully engaged. All over it. She didn’t believe in halfhearted participation . . . in anything.
A single woman, Tina lived in an apartment. And though she longed to own a home, she relished her little living space and filled it full with her vibrant style and personality. Despite the fact that she was renting, she insisted on adding the small touches that made her temporary housing arrangement a home. She repainted the walls, upgraded the lighting fixtures, installed some new appliances. She gave that little place a soul.
I remember asking her one time why she was investing so much into a place that most people wouldn’t sink a dime into. She told me that she never wanted to treat anything in her life as if it wasn’t worth celebrating, as if it was too ordinary to deserve extraordinary attention and appreciation. She didn’t want to wait until she was married or owned a house to start being a good steward of her home. She didn’t want to put off creating a life for herself and the people she loved. She didn’t want to shortchange the glory of God by limiting it to things that seemed suitably grand in scope. So she nested. Settled in. Right there in apartment 21A. Brought the best of herself to this less-than-ideal but better-than-nothing time and space.
Her words and attitude really hit home the day I filed by her casket with the other mourners, shocked to see her frail, lifeless body surrounded by white satin cushions, taken so soon and suddenly from our smiling embrace and friendship. She had gone to be with the Lord long before she or anyone else expected. We were crushed. We missed her so badly. But what if she had been the kind of woman who waited until her life was a little more together and established before she really started to live? What if she had held herself back and reserved her best for later?
Please don’t wait for another time, another set of circumstances, another accomplishment, or another pay raise before flinging the full weight of your potential into the mix—even if you’re not e
ntirely happy with how your life looks right now.
Maybe you envisioned yourself running a Fortune 500 company rather than being a homemaker. And yet I wonder if some of those same skills you’ve honed and enjoyed using in other settings are exactly “the best” of you that God would have you bring to the job of being CEO of the day-to-day operations in your home.
Bring your best.
Maybe you have a serious passion for ministry and wish you were financially able to engage in it full-time rather than being saddled with shift work that pays the bills but keeps you tied down to a firm schedule and thirty-minute lunches. Don’t wait until you’re on the mission field to fuel that fire. I wonder if that zeal is exactly “the best” of you that God wants your coworkers and clients to encounter.
Bring your best.
Maybe divorce has left you alone and stripped of confidence, a shell of the woman you once carried into church, school functions, and family gatherings. But what if you knew God’s glory was still imbedded in you—in this piece and that piece—and by putting all of yourself into all that’s still here, you could once again experience the pleasure of honoring Him by every little thing you do?
Bring your best—all your gifts, skills, talents, and abilities to the task at hand—in this moment, for His glory.
Without a martyr complex.
Even if no one notices.
Even if they notice but don’t appreciate your efforts.
Do it anyway. For His glory.
Well, this chapter’s about over, sister. And the next ten minutes after you finish it—and then every ten minutes thereafter—are in need of your dead-level best. Don’t sit around waiting for anybody else to get his or her act together before you get busy doing yours. Set your sights on displaying God’s glory through today’s calling, and then watch Him inspire and empower you to bring your A game every step of the way.
In anything, everything, and whatever you do.
• When honoring God is your focus, it pares down your purpose and narrows your focus. Carefully reconsider this sentence in light of your own personal circumstances, then record your thoughts:
• How does a focus on honoring God . . .
a. lighten the burden of the perfectionist?
b. inspire you to give your best effort?
• In which tasks have you felt like your best efforts were not good enough?
• When faced with an activity like this—one that you find particularly challenging—how are you encouraged by knowing that God will empower your efforts designed to bring Him glory?
It Only Works When I Breathe
My family and I have become professional travelers. We’ve learned how to pack lightly and navigate an airport in no time flat. Boarding an airplane, even with children in tow, is not nearly as difficult as it once was. We’ve pretty much gotten it down to a science. In fact, my boys have become so familiar with planes and airports, they’ve started to mimic the airline attendants and their preflight spiels. You know . . .
“Please keep your seat belt fastened while the ‘Fasten Seat Belt’ sign is lit.”
“Lock your tray tables and bring your seat backs to an upright position.”
“If you’re seated in an emergency exit row but do not wish to perform the functions described in the event of an emergency, please ask a flight attendant to reseat you.”
But no instruction is more entertaining to my children than when the attendant stands up to do his or her little demonstration, pulls out a clear plastic bag attached to a yellow cone with two little strings hanging down from it, and says, “In case of an emergency, oxygen masks will automatically drop down and appear in front of you. If you are traveling with a child—(or anyone acting like a child, as one stewardess added)—secure your own mask first, and then assist the other person.”
This one bothers my boys. “Why should the adult get the mask first?” they wonder. It seems natural to them that the kids should go first. (So typical.)
I do my best to explain that they can’t receive proper aid until the person helping them is capable of doing so. If I were to pass out from lack of oxygen, for example, I wouldn’t be able to provide them the care they need and deserve.
But how about you? Are you suffocating from a lack of oxygen while trying to make sure everyone else has sufficient care? That’s the question I want you to consider before you sign the next resolution.
Over the last three chapters I’ve encouraged you to give the best of yourself to others, and yet doing so will be impossible if you don’t have anything to give. A fatigued, unhealthy body will not have the energy to make it through the day. Skills and mental capabilities that have been dulled and left unattended will not keep you sharp enough to be of full use to your family and loved ones. Being unattuned spiritually to the Lord and His Word will cause you to be deflated, lacking the Spirit’s direction and fruit that enable you to give when you feel like you have nothing else to offer.
Therefore, making time for what I call “good self-care” is not a luxury; it’s a necessity for any woman wanting to make this resolution. You will never be able to give the best of yourself if you’re not taking care of yourself to begin with.
I’m well aware of the difficulty I may have presented here. Having the time to do anything for yourself may seem out of the question—maybe even highly selfish, given your time constraints as a single mother of two small children, or a mom with a special-needs child, or a grown daughter with aging parents, or a wife whose husband’s career keeps him on the road several days a week, or a single professional saddled with a tall stack of obligations. This list could go on, couldn’t it? And whichever phrase would best describe you, it would probably mitigate against the ready availability of any personal time for yourself.
At the beginning of this section, when I asked you to rearrange your boxes, I’m almost certain that many of the ones pertaining to the things that are fulfilling to you personally were the ones you reassigned to the back of the line. That’s usually where our own care goes when we start getting serious about life. Many women assume and are taught that these are the sacrifices we make when needing to squeeze the most from each minute in the day and maximize our time. So we feel terribly guilty when we even consider taking a moment to relax and rejuvenate.
But hold on a minute. Why wouldn’t taking care of yourself be considered one of the best possible uses of your time when doing so sets the tone for the rest of your entire life?
Now I know that not everyone can head off to the spa for half-day treatments once a week or do shopping and lunch with their girlfriends every afternoon. Certainly not me. Time and money keep these luxuries from being feasible for most of us. Neither am I giving you a license to be self-absorbed.
I am saying this, however: if you don’t have any oxygen, you will begin to suffocate. That’s just the truth, my “I can do everything, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine, thank you” friend.
So . . .
What simple pleasure could you participate in that would rejuvenate you? Many of us don’t even know what simple fun looks like anymore.
For me, spending a few moments alone doing the grocery shopping, or sneaking off to a movie with a friend after the kids are in bed constitutes good self-care. Waking up a wee bit earlier than my three growing boys to jog and pray for thirty minutes in the quiet of the morning always refreshes me. And sometimes, when those afternoon hours bring a lull that woos me to sleep, a quick thirty-minute nap after my two-year-old has gone down often does the trick.
It’s also been recommended to me, as I’ve gotten older, that I must consider the changing needs of my body. What it required to stay replenished, energized, and healthy ten years ago was different from what it needs today. This has meant reconsidering what foods I eat, what vitamins I take, and the consistency with which I see health-care professionals throughout the year. Additionally, I try not to allow the passions God has given me to get trampled under the busyness of life. Whenever I can, I
do the small things that help me continue to grow and develop and stay in tune with those areas.
What might give you a fresh draft of oxygen? It doesn’t have to be expensive or particularly time-consuming. A walk after dinner. A cup of tea at a friend’s kitchen table. Picking up that novel that’s been sitting on your nightstand. Getting to the office ten minutes early to be alone with God before the workday starts. Often a quick interval of quiet can give you just the boost you need to be back on your feet and engaged in the tasks at hand. Or if being around other people is what energizes you, planning even a short outing with a group of friends can do the trick.
Set a timer if you have to. But do it!
There’s just no way around it. If you’re going to stay sharp—if you’re going to keep your oxygen levels up—you need a break every now and then. It’s not a break from your life; it’s a break for your life.
If you live with someone—your husband, a roommate—ask him or her to help ensure that this becomes a regular part of your life. If this kind of household accountability is not an option for you, I’ve often wondered if there are people within our own churches who could help us with this. For instance, there are other moms around with the same time constraints you have. What if you arranged to keep one another’s children for two-hour intervals on occasion so that one of you could have a few minutes to run errands alone?
Or what if there’s a single woman who really wants to know what it’s like to be a wife and mother? In exchange for your real-life mentorship, maybe she could come over to get some hands-on experience for an hour here or there and give you enough time to do something that would really recharge you or give you a sense of accomplishment.
Or maybe if you live close to a friend, the two of you could arrange a little cooking co-op. If you’re already preparing a meal one night, why not make enough for both of your families so the other mom can make use of the time when she’d normally be fixing dinner? Then take turns so that both of you can benefit from the trade-off. Creatively consider how you could arrange small pockets of time like this so you can snatch some moments for yourself.
The Resolution for Women Page 9
