You Are More than Tasks

You Are More than Tasks

You are more than tasks
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Why is it so deeply engraved in us that we’d need to be productive or successful in order to be accepted or admired? Yet it is a big fat lie and the eternal truth is far from it. Mary DeMuth exposes ten lies and shares ten truths in her latest book Stop Living Small: Ten Truths Toward Your Significant Life. This post will tackle the second lie: You are what you produce by showing you are more than tasks.

Mary DeMuth writes “We have decided along the way that to be loved, we must earn our way. Problem is, we have failed to consult the Almighty on this meritocracy. We live our frenetic lives as if Jesus never came, never bore the weight of our shame and misdeeds and apathy on his sacred shoulders. We live as if everything is up to our stellar performance, not his ability to do amazing things through us. When we fail ourselves, we project that disappointment onto God.”

Isn’t it sad that even though we believe in Jesus some of us live like he never came to save us? We still try to earn our salvation, our worth, our happiness. It’s exhausting, don’t you think? Especially when all is ready for us to live freely in grace.

You are more than tasks

How can we then stop behaving like this? Mary DeMuth tells us to shut out those shoulds. You know all those things you should do and most of them might even be really good things. But you are not to exhaust yourself by tackling all the shoulds on your list.

Your value is 100% even if you don’t do anything. I like to rephrase “shoulds” with “it’d be helpful” and the whole thing gets a new tone. There’s a difference between “You should eat more vegetables” and “it’d be helpful if you eat more vegetables”, don’t you think? It takes the pressure off of our shoulders. Truly, you are more than your tasks, your shoulds.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

(Psalm 139:13-14, NIV)

Mary reminds us that God smiles at us when we rest. And that makes me smile. We need rest and rest is good. It’s even holy. We need to remember our value is defined by our status as a child of God. Not by how many billable hours we work or how successful we are. We need to look at our lives from the eternal perspective and we see what’s important and what’s not.

“Blessed [with spiritual security] is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord
And whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord.

(Jeremiah 17:7; AMP)

With the words of Mary DeMuth “Rest is the avenue where you let God be God and you be you”. You don’t need to be anybody or anything else. Because God is everything you need. Just trust. And breathe. All is well when you’re in Jesus. Try it. I know you’ll love it. Rest in grace day in, day out and you will know you are more than your tasks: You are God’s beloved and precious child.

Dear God,
We get so weary as we try to be worthy.
Thank you for loving us unconditionally.
How blessed it is that you save us by grace
because we could not save ourselves.
Save us also from ourselves,
help us to love ourselves, and see our lives from the eternal perspective.
Bless us, Lord, as we sleep.
Show us how to live in your grace.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

P.S.

Isn’t it interesting how hard we are to ourselves? We are told to love others as we love ourselves. Sometimes it is harder to love ourselves than others. But only by loving ourselves first, we can love others. And we can’t love anyone before we receive God’s love and grace. But he has it in abundance for all of us. Let’s seek Jesus so we can all live in love and grace! Be blessed, my friend! God is with you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RSS
Follow by Email