While passing through a season of questioning if I am doing enough for God my answer to myself was that I’m falling short in every area – I don’t pray enough, study His word enough, worship enough, serve others enough, and the list goes on and on. It is a familiar sound – this voice of condemnation. This is an endless nagging that feeds my soul’s wound. This ancient whispers proclaiming, “No matter what you do or don’t do, it’s never enough.” This is not the truth of who I am in Christ Jesus.
The Lord’s voice, through the Holy Spirit, whispers a hope of transformation into His image through conviction, rather than condemnation. So when I wonder if I’m doing enough, the next step is to determine if I’ve been in His presence and am being guided by his promptings. For only when I stray from this place of rest does the “not enoughs” come flooding in. When we are guided by relationship with Him, then all the efforts and works we accomplish are aligned with His strength and will and not of our own making.
When we do it ourselves we get exhausted and feel as though all change to ourselves or the environment around us if futile. When we do it in Him those rivers of living water flow from us and the outcome if in His hands. We are left with a peace that passes all understanding and a knowing that we are walking in the purpose for which we were created.
His voice over us is love, filled with tender mercies, are new every morning, and is filled with a fragrant goodness that invites rather than condemns. Oh soul, this is the voice to heed, that of our Redeemer, Creator, Jesus Christ:
You have captivated My heart. My love, you search your heart and try to call to remembrance the action you took to captivate Me. My love, it’s just thee. My heart melts with one glance of your eyes. Beloved, I Am yours and you are mine. It is not what you do that pleases Me, it is who you are in Me.
Were you to do nothing but sit and think of Me the rest of your life, it would be enough. I would say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest.” I draw you by My goodness, not make a demand for your effort.
Song of Solomon 4:9-17
“You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all choice spices – a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its spices flow. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.”