The Desire Is Enough

 I’ve been legally divorced for just over a year. The actual process of divorce took almost a year as well, and the decision to divorce was weighing on me for another year before that. Three years, friends. Three years with about a million and a half decisions I had to make.

Some of those decisions were immensely consequential (Is it time to file – am I sure I’m done?). Some were relatively trivial but still exhausting (Which dishes do I keep? Curtains in the bedroom or just blinds? Buy new socks or sew up the holes in the ones I have?). But the accumulation of choice after choice after stinkin’ choice made every choice on the table terribly difficult.

By the end of 2020, I was so done. I was ready to fake insanity and let the state take care of me.

Of course, all these decisions wouldn’t have been nearly as hard if I wasn’t so concerned with making the right decisions. Because I believed that there was always a right choice and a wrong choice – that God had one direction he wanted me to go, and that his way would, of course, be the best way for me if I could just figure out where the heck that way was . . .

Maybe this is an unfortunate legacy of growing up in the modern church, you know? This desperate struggle to always do the right thing – and the corresponding feeling that you are always failing miserably. Always letting people down. Always disappointing God.

That’s exhausting, too.

A couple weeks ago, while listening to Pastor Garrett preach online, I had to write down a quote he mentioned from Thomas Merton:

“I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.”

Sob . . . 

TELL me this is true, Lord.

I want to please you. You know I do. I want to do all this right. The teaching, the parenting, the relationships, the starting over . . . all of it. But unless you plan on sending me a personal email with very detailed instructions, I’m gonna screw something up here. It’s inevitable. I’m going to disappoint you.

And let’s be honest: even if I got that email, I’d still screw up, and we both know it. Because I’m WEAK. I’m small and tired and nothing is easy and all the good is hard and I can’t do even one darn good thing that you don’t do through me.  

You know my heart, Lord. I want to make you happy. Please tell me that, at least sometimes, that’s enough.

Three years ago, when this all started, God thrust this verse conspicuously into my face: Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Is 30:21)

I read those words every morning for many weeks to remind myself to keep walking. I can’t just stand still and fret. I have to pick a direction and go. It’s okay if I pick the wrong way; that’s when I’ll hear his voice: “Turn around, baby. Look here. This is the way . . . walk in it.” Then he holds my hand while I turn around.

And yes – just walking and listening and wanting to please him . . . sometimes, that’s enough.