On doing enough

I am the kind of person who perpetually feels they are never doing enough. (Mostly because it's just accurate.) 

With my clients--I see some of my colleagues providing far more release coordination support than I do, or are enduringly picky about small formatting or stylistic errors, or enthusiastically assent to client requests for tangential advocacy, things I feel I do not have the bandwidth for, and I worry I am wrong for that. 

With my kid--I let him look at screens, I let him eat sugar, ( I let him eat dirt!), I am inconsistent in my application of my chosen discipline method, I have him in daycare, and the older he gets the more I am overwhelmed by the volume of things I have not yet taught him. 

With my husband--I always click into the threads in my due date group polling women on how often they are having sex with their partners, looking for reassurance that my lack of libido isn't inflicting cruel and unusual deprivation of my sweet, uncomplaining husband. 

With my ideals--a friend asked me recently if I was an environmentalist, and, you know, I do really want to be, but making choices that steward the earth is a complicated and nuanced task. Yes, I use a bamboo toothbrush, but sometimes I also just really need to use a Ziploc bag. 

With my faith--ohhh, but this is tricky one. What is the interplay between our commitment to growth and reliance on the Holy Spirit to catalyze that growth in our lives? Grace does not mean we are free to live mindlessly and without discipline, but also, His burden is easy and His yoke is light. 

There is a furniture flipper I follow who likes says, "If we're not doing the most, what are we doing?" I heard her voice in my head as I twice sanded the cabinet doors I was refinishing, hoping and praying that this was not empty labor and would actually make the finish nicer. (But also, let's be honest, this is a lipstick on a pig situation.) 

But this is where nothing is a greater encouragement to me than my faith. The Pharisee prays in front of the synagogue, "Lord, thank you that I have done better than all of these people," while the tax collector prays in the back of the synagogue, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." And who is justified? Those of us who are humble, who are empty, who grieve that we have not done enough, who accept that we could never do enough. 

God gives a glimpse of how right and just and bright and good and kind and free the world could be. And it is good and right to have a hunger for that world. But attaining it does not rest solely on our shoulders. If it did, how could I get out of bed in the morning, how could I look myself in the mirror, knowing I am not doing enough? 

And so I pray, "Give me the desire and ability to do the most in You," trusting in the mystical power of a God who restores in ways that are slow to me, invisible to me, confusing to me, but He is always doing more than enough, and that is enough for me.