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In my early 20s, God began to unveil lies I believed about myself-mostly tying my performance to my worth. Once I saw them (and thank God that I did) I quickly went to work trying to overcome those lies. Over time, He has helped loosen the hold they had over me.

No sooner had I started to see growth, I started to claim that I “used to” struggle with performance. You know, in the past, when I didn’t know any better. But now-ta da! All better.

But these days, I hesitate. Because even though God continues to untangle me from those lies, I am humbled by how easily I crane my neck to listen to their voices. How easily I find myself dipping my toes in their invitations to me.

So I don’t like to say that “I used to” struggle with those things anymore.

Instead, I think of myself as a recovering alcoholic in those places. I’m learning to use the language of recovery. “Hi, I’m Gina, and I’m addicted to performance.” (“Hi Gina.”)

Have I experienced freedom in these things? Absolutely. Do they hold me the way they once did? Not at all. But that is not because of my power but His. They are a constant reminder of how I will, on my own, try to save myself.

If I can be blunt, to say, “I used to struggle with that” stems from pride, not humility. It is the language of self-sufficiency, not recovery.

The minute we say, “I don’t do that anymore” we close ourselves to God’s Spirit revealing greater depths of our idolatry, and we cut ourselves off from needing Him to help us in those areas.

The things we struggle with the most will always be our, “there but for the grace of God go I” temptations. The first step is admitting we have a problem.

Living Like We’re in Recovery

And, like addicts, we must remind ourselves that we are powerless on our own to overcome our tendencies. It is only God who can restore. We must take a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves, acknowledging our addictions and admitting them to God.

It’s not a journey any of us can take on our own. As much as it would be nice to hide in the shadows while we sober up, we are called to do this in community. We can only go so far on our own. As we confess our addictions to others, we find we are not alone. We gather strength and courage for the journey.

Being in recovery means staying in a position of dependence, acknowledging our weakness, leaning on the strength of others. It means accepting that we may always walk with a limp in some areas of our lives.

So what is your addiction, if I might be so bold as to ask? How does it still hold you? As we bring these to Jesus, we invite Him to continue to do the deep and necessary work in us to make us whole.

We’re all in recovery.

related posts:

Leaving Our Kingdoms Behind

The Illusion of Having It All Together

God’s Long Term Growth Project

“I know you’re busy, but . . .”

If I had a dollar for every time someone prefaced an invitation to me with this phrase, I could quit my job and live a life of leisure.

Reality? Sometimes when someone says that to me, it’s simply not true. After hitting a wall last year, I have fought hard to eliminate hurry from my life. Is it full? Yes. Is it too full? Thankfully, most of the time, no.

But here’s the thing: when someone says that, it triggers something in me. It probably triggers something in all of us. Something that doesn’t feed anything good.

That word infers value. It implies that we’re in demand. We like to be in demand, don’t we? While we might tire of our overscheduled lives, there’s a reason we keep doing it.

That word reinforces our tendency to overschedule, overwork, overdo. It doesn’t invite us to freedom. In fact, it subtly tells us, “You should be busy. That’s how we do it around here.”

It also diminishes the speaker. “I’m probably not as important as everything you have going on.” There’s an unconscious out we give people in such a statement that says, “Your busy life can trump me.”

That word limits us. If I am busy when someone makes that statement, they’ve just justified me overdoing it. If I’m not, they’ve implied I should be. There’s no freedom to rest, no invitation to slow down.

Busyness is a cultural expectation. How often do you hear someone say, in response to an inquiry about how they’re doing, “Yeah, you know, we’re really busy!”

We say it with a smile and a shrug, like, “What can we do?”As though it’s something that happened to us, rather than something we’ve chosen. We say we don’t like it, but we continue to agree to it.

And it’s killing us.

How Busy Hurts Us

Busy undermines our ability to live well. All throughout scripture, God calls us to be people of rest, people who love others well, people who live in peace and joy. How do we do that when we barely have space to breathe?

Busy keeps us isolated, ironically. While we might encounter people in all our activities, rarely are there places where we sit and live slowly, deeply, intentionally with others. It’s sports practice or business dinners, church functions or birthday parties. Fun? Usually. Restful? Rarely.

The word itself, when we speak it over one another, keeps our eyes fixed on the wrong things. It tells us to value that which the world values. It reinforces that our worth comes from our productivity. We fear slowing down means we’ll miss out. It keeps us on an exhausting ride.

So What Should We Do?

I realize there will always be seasons of busyness for each of us. What we must guard against is them becoming continuous seasons. [ictt-tweet-inline]When a season of busyness simply leads to another season of busyness, then what you have is not seasons: it’s a climate.[/ictt-tweet-inline]

We lived in Singapore for 5 years. It’s one degree off the equator. When the daytime temp doesn’t shift more than about 5 degrees the whole year around, you lose a sense of time. You become acclimatized. It wasn’t until people came to visit us and complained of the heat and humidity that we were reminded of the climate in which we lived.

When we keep using this word busy in our vocabulary, we become acclimatized. I wonder if we even know what it feels like to not be so driven.

[ictt-tweet-inline]We must fight to keep “busy” from defining our lives.[/ictt-tweet-inline] It is a choice to be busy. And it’s a hard choice not to be.

To not embrace it means to say no, often to good things. We have to face FOMO. Maybe we miss out on something important.

Or maybe we realize it wasn’t as important as we thought.

It can begin with us eliminating this word from our vocabulary. Certainly, let’s stop speaking it over one another. You don’t know I’m busy. I don’t know that you are.

And even if we are, we don’t need others to encourage us to stay in it. We need to invite each other to step away from it.

Let’s Slow Down

What if our answer to, “how are you doing?” didn’t include the word, “busy” anymore? What if instead, we could say, “We’re in a slow season right now. It feels good.” Or at least, “We’re trying to slow down.” Can you imagine?

We were never meant to live as the world lives. In this aspect, in particular, we have an opportunity right now to live counter-culturally.

May we be people who live slowly, deliberately. God, make us people who rest well and love well. May we live just to the limits you give us, not beyond.

Related posts:

Learning to Walk (at an Unhurried Pace)

Choosing Slow

When You’re Starting the Week Weary

Warning: Don’t Forget to Breathe

Late November, I hit a wall.

A panic attack out of nowhere led me to spend a week in bed recuperating, watching Hallmark channel movies to the point where there was nothing else in my YouTube feed. (I know, they’re terrible, but everything works out in the end. It’s so comforting).

The attack forced me to examine my life and make the tough decision to drop some significant responsibilities in my life. The mere thought of letting something go brought all the crushing lies of the enemy, “People will be so disappointed. This is proof that you can’t hack it. They’ll finally realize you’re not as great as they thought.”

Those lies dissolved the second I made the decision to quit and focus on less. The decision gave my soul freedom to take a much-needed breath and exhale fully.

But in this new found space, I wondered, “What will I do now?”

Pondering this question one morning on a walk, I felt the Spirit whisper, “What if you didn’t do, Gina? Why don’t you just be with me? Could you do that? Could you just be with me, and enjoy me?”

God continues to speak to me about slowing down and just being. Read the rest of the story at the Mudroom Blog!

Related posts:

When “Do Not Be Anxious” Isn’t Enough

To Truly Be Still

Learning to Walk (At an Unhurried Pace)

Don’t Forget to Breathe

When I was pregnant with our 2nd child, I prayed for a girl with red, curly hair. I got my wish, apart from the curls. Looking back, I see now I wanted so much more for her than that curly red hair.

I wanted her to live loved, to be confident in who she is, and to find her passion and live it well. I wanted her to love Jesus. I wanted her to be strong.

Even as she came into the world and grew, I was in a process myself of redefining what being a strong woman means . . .

Read the rest of this post about how God has led me to raise our daughter to have true strength at my friend Beth Bruno’s blog today! She is the author of the soon to be released A Voice Becoming: A Yearlong Mother-Daughter Journey into Passionate, Purposed Living. 

Related posts:

Finding Your Own Voice

Hope for My Daughter (On Turning 13)