This morning, I stared at my spiritual to-do list only to find it staring back at me accusingly:

  -   30 minutes of Bible study (uninterrupted, with deep insights),

  -   15 minutes of journaling (authentic, not repetitive),

  -   15 minutes of silent meditation (no wandering thoughts allowed!)

For the record, that’s not my actual morning routine, that’s what I feel like it should be. My actual routine is a lot more coffee and doom-scrolling the news.

In my recent interview with Gretchen Ronnevik, author of Ragged: Spiritual Exercises for the Spiritually Exhausted, she shared a common feeling mothers have: The “expectations” of keeping up with your spiritual practices are contradictory, “you have to show your kids that you're in the Word, but also you should do it before they're awake, but also you should do it with them, but also you should be…” AAAARGH!

Gretchen’s struggle extends far beyond motherhood. It’s a universal anxiety about spiritual requirements. How much is enough? For my kids’ future? To secure my own future? To keep God happy?

I have a constant internal voice asking me similar anxious questions. But what’s truly bizarre is how easily I put this internal dialogue into God’s mouth. Without realizing it, my own impossible, contradictory standards become sacred obligations.

My anxiety is projected onto God and, suddenly, I’m serving an anxious god! One who is nervously measuring my spirituality. Who’s never quite sure that I’ve done enough. And he just keeps showing up in my thoughts saying things like:

  -   “Surely you can do better, don’t you think?”

  -   “I can’t tell if you really meant that.”

  -   “I wish you wanted to spend more time reading my Word!”

  -   “You’re not doing what I want you to do, but I’m not going to tell you what that is, you should already know!!”

But, honestly, can you find Jesus acting like this nervous, insecure god in Scripture?

No! When I relax and attend to what he actually says, I don’t find an anxious taskmaster, instead I hear a gentle invitation, “Come to me if you are carrying a heavy burden. I’ll take it from you and give you rest” (Matt 11:28).  And, “Don’t worry about all that stuff in the future, I know that you need it, and you are the most important thing in the world to me.” (Matt 6:25-34)

The contrast couldn't be more stark. My anxious god paces nervously, clipboard in hand. The real Jesus sits calmly at a banquet table—prepared right in the middle of all the scary stuff (Psalm 23)—and pulls a chair out for me to sit with him.

Jesus isn’t anxious. He’s not nervous about the future or about God the Father’s opinion of him. Jesus knows that he is the Father’s beloved child, and Jesus has happily given me and you that same status with his Father. You and I are the beloved.

So, really, I don’t need to worry! God feeds the birds and clothes the flowers and you and I are way more important than them to him!

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