Accepting Where You're At // Surrender The JourneySample

Where Performance Comes In

This worry can come up a lot. The worry of ”I am not doing enough; I am surely a disappointment to you. What do I do with this life you have given me?” And the first thing that needs to be addressed is how you feel about me. Why do you worry about not doing enough? What is there for you to do other than listen for my voice and respond? Yes, it is the “response” that you are concerned about. But let’s put that away for right now. Rather, we must start here: the alignment of your heart with mine. This is how you are made to live. You are made to listen for my voice. And this voice can sound so different, depending on the circumstances, can’t it?

When you know me, and you look for me . . . when you expect me to communicate with you, it helps your heart to receive me. Do you want freedom? Freedom from these expectations that are not your own? Expectations of this world, pressure to perform that is in accordance with a false belief in what is good, in what is worthwhile, in what is for you?

Do you?

Then do this: son, daughter, run now. Run hard into the place where I am. I am here, asking you to ask me this: “Will You come and show me what it is that I believe about You? Will You come and help me see what gets in the way of me believing You are good, that You love me right now, no matter how I respond? That you do not love me less based upon my performance?”

Know that I have a dream for you and I do not let it go. There is a restlessness in your heart when you feel there is something I have for you but you are not doing it yet. That may be what causes your discomfort, what makes you wonder if you are a disappointment. But we must separate the doing from the being. Who you are is not what you do. What you are able to do—and the freedom that comes from doing what I ask you to do, in alignment with me, develops you in your maturity. It grows you. Your soul recognizes my voice. I breathed spirit in you, and your soul recognizes its maker. So, let us begin there.

And the performance part—the time when you get to stand before me, face to face, and I ask you what you did with what I gave you? You can be at peace about that, knowing that your life will be lived beautifully, perfectly, when you receive me. You can’t help, then, to respond.

Exercise:

How do you get free of the exhausting drive to perform and achieve, free of those urges, deep within, to earn worth and acceptance by chasing worldly success?

Do you want to get free?

How do you entrust your worth and your heart to Jesus, instead of to this culture we live in?

Is that even possible?

Is it possible to surrender all external, cultural measures of our worth, and to surrender all worldly outcomes, all outcomes, to Him? To our King, the one who loves us most?

Is it possible to live in freedom?

It is possible. It is attainable. In fact, that’s what you’re made for.

And it all starts when we simply say yes. Again and again and again.

Yes to a greater measure of Jesus in our life.

Yes to more of His truth and goodness, to more of his light and presence.

Yes to letting him minister to our hearts, to His help in uncovering the wounds and the agreements that drive to do things we don’t want to do, things we were never meant to do.

Yes to healing.

Yes to letting Him guide us, to showing us His Way.

Yes to apprenticing, to teaching us more of who we are, truly, uniquely.

Yes to letting him separate our doing from our being.

So, let’s say yes now.