One of the things on my prayer list is “what God wants from my life.” I added it one day when I was seeking God about what I should be doing to serve Him. It’s been on the list for a long time. As I was praying the other day, I came to that item and what screamed in my brain was “to love Him.” What God wants from my life is for me to love Him. (Micah 6:8 comes to mind here.)
As I thought about it further, I realized that He’s satisfied with that (i.e., loving Him), but I’m not…and that took me back to the blog of a few weeks ago (Are You Satisfied?)…when God asked me if I was satisfied with Him. Not with serving Him, but with Him. Am I satisfied with Him if it’s all I have or all I do?
I’m a “do-er.” I’m a “get-involved” kind of person. I’m a “let’s throw out some ideas, pray about them, then do something” kind of girl. (And I’m ashamed to admit it, but sometimes I forget about the “pray about it” part.)
So being satisfied with God and God alone is hard. It’s difficult for me to be “satisfied” if I don’t experience accomplishment. And accomplishment has always come from action. I don’t know yet how to connect the positiveness I get inside from experiencing accomplishment with being satisfied with God alone.
My gut reaction is to say “OK, my new goal is to develop a plan for being satisfied with God. That will (1) lead to being satisfied with God, and (2) give me a sense of accomplishment.” Somehow, I don’t think that gets me where I want to go.
But God made me the way I am and He loves me the way I am – a planner and a do-er and a lover of God. How do I reconcile the three? Do they need to be reconciled? I don’t know. But I do know that both God and I want me to be more satisfied with Him and Him alone and have less of a need to experience a sense of accomplishment. (While not becoming lazy in the process… because quite frankly it’s really easy for me to get lazy.)
I think spiritual disciplines like meditation are called for! So my new goal is practice meditation? Oops, there that goal reflex again.
I also think that worship transcends this argument. I am fully satisfied with God in times of intimate worship. No need for accomplishment. Just being with Him satisfies. But then I get back to my “real life” and my achievement orientation kicks in.
Please don’t think I’m dissing achievement. I’m not. Achievement is good and we were created to do the good works God has prepared in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10 — it’s one of my favorite verses!).
I’m still working on this issue. No real answers in this blog, just some ruminating…
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