We have stretched ourselves thin for too long.
We are writers, STEMers, and musicians. We rehearse with the worship team or change diapers in the nursery, work 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job, and stay up all night filing information into our brains for AP and college courses.
And while we’re at it, maybe we could start an Instagram account, no, a blog, no, a book! Because there’s a whole wide world out there, and it needs influencing.
Except we don’t know how to influence the world. We don’t even know how to manage our own lives. We’re crumbling into pieces, one stress fracture at a time.
This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. A healthy Rebelutionary doesn’t hold themselves to impossible standards–yet that is exactly what we’re doing. We’re not only crushing low expectations, we’re setting the expectations so high, that the tallest giraffe couldn’t reach them.
We Are Crushed by Ambition
It’s an all-or-nothing world, isn’t it? Double your majors, dual enroll, take extra shifts, monetize your hobbies, dip your toes in the dating pool, and wait for your inevitable role in the showing of “Boss-Mommy-Author-Artist-Blogger-Traveler-Superhero-Whimsical-Fairy-Queen.” (Guys, I’m sure there’s a name for you too.)
And we wonder why this generation stay up all night, sleep through classes, and run themselves ragged every hour of every day of every week.
Surely, technology caused this epidemic of teen anxiety and depression blanketing the entire country. It must be cell phones or social media.
Unless it could have something to do with the increasing pressures of an overwhelming, overstimulating, overachieving world.
We are scared. We are scared of not fulfilling all that’s expected of us, scared of chasing our dreams and falling flat on our concealer-coated faces. Opportunity is a two sided coin. On the one side, there’s the golden halo of success. On the other, there’s the dumpster of failure.We are scared. Opportunity is a two sided coin. On the one side, there’s the golden halo of success. On the other, there’s the dumpster of failure. Click To Tweet
At some point or another, we all fail at something. And I would guess, a lot of us spend most of our years digging in the dumpster. Our expectations are so high, we can never reach them; and in our own eyes, fearing the judging eyes of others, this failure can become our identity.
Is this to be our fate?
Set Aside Your Expectations
You do not have to be everything.
Just because you can do a lot of things doesn’t mean you have to do them all. You don’t have to run in fifteen directions at once, searching for a name for yourself–when your worth is already decided.
There’s only one goal that matters in this life, only one way to ever measure up. God looks upon me with grace because of Jesus’ righteousness wrapped around my shoulders. And if he loves me as I am, without fame or fortune, I don’t have to pursue those things. All I need is him.
When we have this basis for our identity, we don’t have to search a billion paths for success. We don’t have to work ourselves to death trying to be the perfect student, the perfect artist, or the perfect Christian. Instead, we get to enjoy creativity and work and learning, and to do well in the particular callings to which he calls us.
The grace of God has appeared in salvation, uprooting our habits and renewing our motivations till our lives are transformed. Our hope is not in earthly success, not in worldly treasures, but in the return of Christ (Titus 2:11-13).
With this in mind, we are free to live as quietly and simply as fits our calling (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12). A nine-to-five middle class life is no less worthy than an influencer lifestyle. A community college is no less respectable than an ivy league school.
It’s not the type of life you’ve been given that determines your success, but how you choose to live it. We’re called to godliness.
Find Your Peace in Christ
Only Jesus can satisfy the longing and the searching. He orders the meaningless void of our self-centered lives and instills them with purpose, with a confidence unshakable. We belong to him, for his glory, for eternity. And our life in heaven will be indescribably superior to this sin-wrecked earth.
No matter what happens, Jesus is in control of your life. He has purchased his people through his own blood on the cross, and he is pleased with the simple act of believing in him. Our job is to trust him, to obey his commands, and to become an outpouring of his love.
We don’t have to be all the world tells us to be. We have Christ, and even when we are not, he is always enough.
I just stumbled on the Rebelution this Sunday, and I’ve been in a scramble reading Do Hard Things, taking the quiz, swallowing articles, etc. I tend to be an all-or-nothing guy, and I was beginning to get pretty overwhelmed by the daunting task of not falling back into complacency and living for the Lord.
Reading this reinforced what my mom was counseling me with–that I am called to believe and to submit and to trust the Lord to work a Rebelution in me, and not to scramble so much on doing Every Hard Thing All the Time Everywhere.
Thank you so much!