Why does my enoughness matter?

There are five lies that came about this morning while I was praying -- five lies that I'm guessing many of my friends have heard somehow, somewhere before. Many of those lies literally RULE our lives, and we have no idea how to break that pattern or even that the pattern is destructive or even that there IS a pattern. God speaks to us when we listen, and this morning I was yearning to listen. Every single one of these lies I believe. Every day. 

God is asking me to believe His truth rather than my lies. And I'm hearing Him ask me to urge you to do the same. 

To be clear - I am not fixed now that I wrote these lies on a white board in my dining room. I'm incredibly broken - about as broken as I have ever been. And I've been begging the Lord for weeks to help me out of this abyss I seem to have fallen into this Christmas season - of all seasons. But maybe this is where God wants me to be so that I can embrace the season with more urgency than ever before.

In each of the lies I wrote down this morning, a common word is found. 

1. I don't have enough (time, talent, money, stuff...).
2. My problems aren't bad enough (to talk about).
3. I'm not important enough (for people to listen).
4. I'm not good enough (at anything to matter).
5. I'm not doing enough (for people to care about me OR for people to know I care about them). 

Enough. Enough enough. I have had enough. What is this word and why is it even spelled the way it is? And why has it caused so much anguish for so many people in our culture?

I could give you a run down of truths in the Bible that tell us that the lies are false, but sometimes, even knowing that the Sword of God exists isn't enough (see what I did there?) to urge us to pick it up and believe these truths. I can tell you that there are scriptures that combat EVERY SINGLE ONE of these lies, and yet what good would it do if you didn't have enough energy to look them up or faith to really wrap your head around the meaning?

It would do zero good.

And so I am going to do none of that. But I will tell you that distractions won't work. Watching TV, scrolling Facebook, YouTube, memes, alcohol, sex, exercise, reading self-help books, listening to music -- none of it will work long term to put you in a place where you will believe God's truths 100% of the time and stop believing those lies. 

The Psalms are a very good place to park for a while. Sitting in silence with a notebook and pen in hand is also helpful. Doing things that still your soul - even exercise if you can do it for the soul purpose of connecting with God - is a good place to start. Deep breathing a prayer for five minutes, talking out loud to God and telling him you have no idea even where to start . . . . also good. Give God some space to fill your brain with truths and stop filling it with what others say.

But know this. You. Are. Not. Alone. And you do have enough. And your problems are bad enough to share with somebody. And your are important enough for others to listen to those problems. You're good enough at something to matter to somebody - because God is somebody. And you're doing enough because somebody feels cared-for by you today. And somebody loves you. Regardless of how you see people - God loves you. And he's bigger than all of it. And that, friend, stills my soul.

The sin cycle as applied to a church pianist

Last weekend our pastor delivered a message that hit me in a few different places. One thing that I’ve been sitting in for a few days has been the cycle that the Hebrews got themselves in during the Old Testament. The five steps of this cycle were 1. Disobedience 2. Oppression 3. Prayer 4. Deliverance and then 5. Peace.

Step five is an interesting step because that’s the comfortable stage (and a highly relatable stage) — where we can sometimes forget what it was like on step two, or we probably wouldn’t go back to step one.  But we do it anyway because peace produces apathy, and the cycle starts over again. Pastor Jim was speaking specifically about the Hebrews in the book of Judges, but something hit me yesterday morning as I was sitting at the piano during mass. 

I consider myself to be a fairly self-aware person — noticing when things are not how they should be, and often pinpointing correctly where something went wrong and why. This has taken a lot of therapy, prayer, and work on my part — not to mention God’s grace, but apparently it is not fool proof (by no fault of God, I must point out). I’m not a very confident pianist, mainly because my skills are inferior to my “equals” at the church, and I don’t dedicate hours of my day to practice like many do. My forte (see what I did there?) is teaching, not playing. But for some reason I got roped into staying at a sub gig that I was begged to take at a nearby Catholic Church (piano players are hard to find, apparently). 

Because I was not confident and apparently a super workable person, the music director was gracious, and he did his best to keep me happy by choosing from a group of hymns whenever I played, and he did his best to prep me in advance if we had to change the mass. Once or twice he forgot to tell me the mass was changing, and he just let me play the old mass so he didn’t push me over the edge of the cliff on which I was already playing.  I can recall sitting during quiet times in mass literally praying with fingers on the keys, playing the pieces in my head so that I could get extra practice time in while the priest was delivering his message.

Then one day it stopped. Going completely unnoticed, I no longer needed to pray and practice silently during mass. I ran the pieces during the week a few times after I received the list of hymns (usually on a Friday for Sunday mass), but I was so comfortable that being on top of practice and having my head in the game and on the Lord was less important that it had been. 

Then our music director resigned.

And my apathy soon produced disobedience. Somebody changed the entire mass (to one I had never played) on a Thursday to be ready by Sunday and then sent me a list of hymns which were unfamiliar. I flipped my lid. At first I refused to play the mass. Then when I received it I realized it wasn’t horrible, but I was still angry as all get out because I had so much new music to learn. Never mind it happened on Thanksgiving weekend when I had almost an entire Saturday off to learn it. I was angry. My plans for the weekend were to decorate for Christmas. But now that had to take a step back to my job as an accompanist to worship leadership. Disobedience.

Sunday morning I sat at the piano, praying and playing in my head - fingers flying across the keys as the priest delivered his message. And it was at this moment that something hit me. I had been ignorant of my apathy. Much like the Hebrews after God had given them the promised land. They still disobeyed because of apathy caused by peace in their lives and in their souls. Something about peace causes us to start to forget how we got there in the first place. How is this possible? I don’t know how or why, but sometimes God allows us to ask questions for a long time before He answers them. 

Applying this lesson to my life in other areas, including homeschooling, teaching piano, being a wife, mom and friend - will sharpen me, prune me, and fill me up. That Pastor Jim — always in tuned with what I needed to hear at that particular moment.