Trying too Hard

A metaphor we can all understand, right? You and I know people who try too hard. Only for me, the biggest culprit is me. Yes, me.

Foreshadowing: the spiritual *stuff* is coming up: I know that I trust God, but that I don't trust Him to the point of full-on surrender, because I trust me. I try too hard at getting the job when I want to get the job, a job by the way that I felt I had to get. I try too hard to meet my own expectations, yes my own expectations of me. I try too hard to justify the ice cream cone, because I have earned it, when in reality I don't much deserve much. I try too hard to hide my needs and vulnerabilities, because I don't want to inconvenience anyone with my needy-ness. I try too hard at a lot of things. I over-work it, over-analyze it, over-prepare it, over-dramatize it, and mainly: under-pray about it.

The problem is, we were never asked to carry our own burdens, figure out the solutions, or resolve it all on our own. But I have...because I trust myself. But what I am seeing is that I have created my own anxiety oftentimes. Lately, I've wanted to find a secondary source of income to generate margin for debt repayment and a few other things - which does include airline tickets and wedding money FOR MY SISTER. Yup, remember she and Bob are engaged! Debt repayment isn't bad - no it's Biblical (more Biblical to not even get in it), but I generated my own notion of how that would get resolved. So I've avidly applied for over 25 jobs in recent weeks thinking about debt repayment. Then I find stress in not hearing, or not jive-ing with the responses. All for something I tried too hard to solve and something God did not ask me to do: find a second job; the solution to the problem. Is that the solution: perhaps, but it's the solution when it is HIS idea and HIS timing. Getting myself into panicky situations because of my own idiocy is not His idea of a good time. Gee, me neither for that matter. NOT FUN. :(

The trick is to not move into self-loathing or self-distaste. That isn't the goal. The goal is to recognize the areas we fail or are weak and allow those to be areas of grace, but discipline. For me, I need to create bumpers as a bowling lane, so that my primary focus can be on the pins, or less-metaphorically, on God, the Goal, the Prize, the Savior. :) I need to focus on little, so that I can rely on the MOST High God.

Do you try too hard? At what?
Do you have a plan of action for improvement or to "mellow out"? Got insight for me?