CAN'T OR SHOULDN'T

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday, and this week's prompt word is ANYMORE. 

I can't do THIS anymore!!

If you find yourself saying these words, it's time to re-evaluate. Even if it's just said to yourself, or screamed into your pillow, or thrown out to a listening friend, or muttered as you walk out the door to vent and regroup.  

It's time to re-evaluate your THIS - your relationship, your load, your role, your expectations or someone else's - whatever THIS is that you can't do anymore.

Maybe you're like me and you keep pushing yourself until you break, because you've had to, or trained yourself to, or you're too scared not to. 

But the Lord doesn't keep pushing us to live at the edge of breaking, to continually function at the edge of anymore. 

Oh, He will allow us to break if we have resisted His every invitation to be still and know, to stop striving, to stop overreaching, to simply live within His holy expectations.

It's not His desire to destroy us, but He will crush those things in us that are not of Him, like stubbornness, drivenness, idolatry, performance, people-pleasing, etc.    If we'll stay in the program of surrender and transformation, He will come after those things that are destroying us.  

The alternative to that surrender is to tweak our anymore, adjust the load one more time (after we've had our rant-and-rave break), and then lock ourselves back into the yoke of our own making, or someone else's.  

But if we lock ourselves back into that anymore yoke, without re-evaluating with Him, without finding out why it's rubbing us raw, we really will get to ‘I can't do this anymore!’.

The choice will be taken from us.   

Something will break - our health, our mental health, our relationships, our finances, the quality of our fruit, our position.  

Nothing under that much strain is sustainable indefinitely.   

When we get to that place of ‘I can't do this anymore!!’, and I have a few times, and find myself there again on a particular issue, we have to get some answers from Him.  

He requires excellence, but not exhaustion.

He requires fruit, not productivity.

He requires honesty, not pretending.

My previous post was about persevering and there absolutely is a place for perseverance.

We have to be willing to do that if we know our THIS is from Him and His grace is on it.

But sometimes, we have to recognise that not only is it ‘I can't do this anymore!!’, it's ‘I shouldn't do this anymore!’, because our THIS is not from Him.

Or perhaps something needs to change in our THIS - how and when and how much, and perhaps even why we’re doing it.

People will expect us to keep doing, and we will expect that of ourselves, because of fear, guilt, shame, familiarity, soul ties, etc.  

But when He says enough, we just need to stop. 

We have to stop trying harder, stop adjusting the yoke, and sit. When that time comes, we need to sit and let things fall where they will and rest at His feet.   We need to be prepared, like Mary, to ignore the pressure from others, and the pressure within, and find out what He requires.    

But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”   Luke 10:42

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”   Matthew 11:28-30

 

I say, "I'm fine, yeah, I'm fine, oh, I'm fine, hey, I'm finе"
But I'm not, I'm broken
And when it's out of control, I say it's under control
But it's not and You know it
I don't know why it's so hard to admit it
Whеn being honest is the only way to fix it
There's no failure, no fall, there's no sin You don't already know
So let the truth be told