The Questions I Need to Be Asking

There are some days where we get sideswept by the sharp dichotomy of 2 things: the things I want and yearn for and the things I feel like I “should” do. We feel unbalanced. We often emotionally erupt. We feel a little… hormonal.

And the funny part is, you can ask yourself these questions

• What do I want?
• What do I feel like I “should” do?

And I think most of us would have some similar answers.

What Do I want?

Less stuff

Time spent with my kids

A friend who “gets” me

Kids that my kids likes to play with

Rest

A good marriage

To teach my kids to love Jesus whole heartedly and joyfully

What do I feel like I “should” do?

Fix problems

Have it “together”

Finish my “to do” list (who gets to decide what’s on there anyway?)

And a whole myriad of items without eternal consequence

 

But I think both questions are a misnomer.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think it’s wrong to want those things (or others). I don’t think it’s wrong to learn to do things we don’t want to do (but know that we should). And I don’t think it’s wrong to examine and discard things we feel we “should” do but don’t actually need to do.

These questions are misleading because… they’re still not answering the most important question. The question that can give us peace, assurance and hope.

What Does God tell me?

Titus 2:3-5 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

What are the older women to do? To teach us (young women)

To love my husband and children

To be self controlled

To be pure

To work at home

To be kind

To be submissive

And why must I be learning these things?

So that the word of God may not be reviled.

Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

It’s when I let the other stuff, the stuff I feel I should do (can you hear how silly it sounds when we say it out loud – I feel I should? What about what God tells me!) take precedence.

Hebrews 12:1-3 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Do you feel weary? Fainthearted?

Then consider Him. Jesus. The one who went through human life, just for me. It’s when I let my mind start considering other, less important, less eternal things that I begin to grow weary or fainthearted.

And so, today, maybe your heart is a little like mine. Yearning for some things. Feeling a little thwarted by things I feel I “should” do. And needing the conviction and the confidence that comes from remembering what God wants. To consider him. To look to Him. And to shape my life after His.