Following God, Finding Balance

Though none go with me, I still will follow…

In “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis, there’s a scene where Lucy realizes that she was supposed to have followed the lion Aslan alone into the forest. He had not expected her to wait for her siblings to come along, but rather to trust Him to lead her. That was a tangible representation of what I have always dreamed of doing. In fact, I’ve been pretty brave in leaping into the many amazing adventures that God has called me to, and I didn’t hesitate even if it meant I’d be seen as an oddball. Actually, I felt proud of myself for being brave enough to do the weird stuff. However, I didn’t see very many people around me following God in quite this way, so sometimes I found myself feeling forlorn, for lack of a better word.

I wasn’t just weird because of my life choices, though. I followed God into accepting his discipline, even when it looked like no one around me felt the slightest twinge of conscience about the things that God was making me give up doing, seeing, or thinking about. God had me give up network TV for years. I gave up wearing pants for a few years, too. I homeschooled my children. I listened only to old fashioned gospel music for a while. Before it was cool, I found myself living like a homesteader, but without the housekeeping skills. Even in that area, I was an outsider.

My biggest pet peeve about God was that sometimes I felt like the only person that God corrected and disciplined. Why wasn’t I hearing anyone baring their hearts, admitting their struggles, or talking about how God was dealing with their sins? I was living in a time in the church where it seemed that if you were godly, you had to be smiling, shiny, and perfect. I was smiling, but I certainly didn’t have the other two qualities.

To avoid admitting that I was angry with God about this disparity, I internalized it all. I realized that God was not wrong to correct me. In fact, I was constantly faced with reminders of my every flaw. So, since I didn’t see others around me experiencing this feeling of constant, crushing disapproval that seemed to be coming from God himself, I decided to accept that I was probably the problem.

Not one to give up easily, I developed a plan! In order to finally win the Lord’s approval, I would prove my love with my actions. I followed God as faithfully as I knew how, which meant saying yes to every single thing that I was asked to do in church or even remotely related to the things of God. I really believed that this commitment to saying yes was proof that I was living for God on a level that few people did. In fact, I noticed that even strong Christians in leadership seem less stressed out about pleasing God than I was. They actually said no to requests to do things that they were perfectly suited for. I saw this “apathy” as proof that I was trying harder, and I felt so proud of all my efforts.

Martyrdom appealed to me, and in a twisted way, I enjoyed what I believe could be considered suffering for a cause. I began to tell myself that God had set me on a solitary road, where I had to follow my conscience uniquely while everyone around me was wrongly choosing to go with the flow and follow the crowd. I felt set apart and special because of my solitary place on the fringes, and I bet I was fun to be around back then! (Spoiler alert: That was sarcasm. I was awful.)

Sometimes, in my loneliness and martyrdom, I would joke around that I blamed the Lord, because the way that I followed my conscience made me look weird to the people around me. Though I continued to internalize and suffer through every stray comment and eye roll, I can now see that people weren’t purposely mean, and they tended to understand that I was not trying to do any harm. Sadly, my own stray comments and disapproving looks still hurt others, and when I realized that they did, I suffered an agony of regret. I didn’t suffer too much from this, however, because I generally made excuses for my behavior and seldom allowed myself to be brought face to face with my own ungodly attitudes. 

My first version of this blog was awkward and filled with bitterness and complaining about the behavior of others. At the time I wrote it, I was certain that I wasn’t bitter, but rather that I was wounded because of the behavior of others. But looking back, I see that at that time, my misguided efforts to gain God’s approval, were making me into a jerk. So, I made a new version of this blog and replaced the vitriol with a more detached description of my past bitter feelings to help you understand the power of the moment I’ll be describing in the next paragraph. 

On a random day that I can’t even pinpoint because it was my regular routine at this point, I was once again feeling the weight of my lonely, martyred life. My one consolation was that I really, really loved the Lord. So, I began pouring my heart out to God, saying, “Oh, Lord, I love you!” I gave it the right amount of oomph, pathos, and deep emotion. I was really pouring it on, and very abruptly, but not unkindly, the response came. “I know.” It was gentle, loving, and final. The subject was closed. It was time to move on. But when my whole identity had consisted of doing things to try to do things that would prove to God how much I loved Him, what was there to do now?

I couldn’t be proud of myself if I wasn’t doing way too much and burning myself out, could I? For the first time in my life, I would actually need to follow God’s voice, not just the instructions about what I should do, but also about the things I needed to stop volunteering to do. I discovered that God wasn’t interested one bit in building up my pride. What he wanted was for me to let him lead me. And that was tough to hear, because all this time, I had been positive that my life was a living sacrifice to God where I was doing everything in obedience to Him. 

Furthermore, God showed me that He loved me, too, and that there was nothing I needed to do to increase his love for me. It took a while to sink in, but eventually, I got it. Now, I’m certain that God made us for more than a life of fear, desperation, and constant guilt. He literally gave his son to remove our shame. It came to me so clearly that I suddenly asked myself what I had been thinking. I realized that by trying to win God’s approval by work, I was spitting in the face of Jesus’s sacrifice for me. So, I eventually stopped overworking myself and making myself sick mentally and physically. I began choosing to guard my energy, and I did only what I believed I felt called to do in that moment. After awhile, I found my rhythm again. 

And that’s where I found myself yet again on the receiving end of other people’s rolled eyes. It turns out, if you’re proud of how much you’re doing, you’re making a pest of yourself. But if you tell someone no, because you are certain that God hasn’t asked you to take part in their pet project, you’re now annoying people in another way. 

At first, the disapproval hurt, but I had things to do and a God to follow. So, while I could have let that stop me in my tracks, instead, I did my very best to keep honoring God, and I realized that in that moment, the way that I rested in His love pleased him. All of a sudden, I found that once again, I was hearing his voice, both the loving approval and the necessary rebukes. My life became balanced, and I felt healthy. 

I’ve recently begun falling into my past ways. Jumping in to help with just one thing because it’s an emergency… is okay, right? That gentle “no” I felt in my spirit got ignored. Once, then twice I fell into the trap, and suddenly, bitterness began to creep in again. I suddenly noticed that I felt proud of myself. I felt superior. (Oh no!)

That’s when I wrote this post the first time, the bitter, vitriolic one. Do you believe it? I had fallen once again into this trap! So, I put on the brakes, remembered to take care of myself and do only the maximum that I could do well, as unto the Lord. All of a sudden, I realized that I was finding my balance again. 

In case you don’t see the moral yet, I’ll tell you. God loves you. Really loves you. You don’t need to perform like a trained monkey to gain his approval. But you will also mess up at times, and he’s going to tell you that. So, I’d encourage you to keep listening to his rebukes, accepting his love wholeheartedly, loving others well, and praying. In Him, everything is possible. With some trial and error, or the easier way by learning from my mistakes, you can find that balance that has eluded you your whole life, but only in Him. 

By Stephanie Orsini from StephanieOrsini.com