Does God Care About What I Do?

I’m sitting in a dark, quiet house, basking in the glow of Christmas lights while I reflect on this past year and think about the one ahead. What will I leave behind in 2019, and what will I carry forward into the new year?

Maybe you’ve started asking yourself similar questions as we peer through the final weeks of 2019 and into the next decade.

As I sit, a gentle voice reminds me of something God began speaking to me almost ten years ago.

God cares more about who I’m becoming than what I do.

Those words are both frightening and delightful all at once. And obviously something I’m still learning. Ten. Years. Later.

It’s a relief to be reminded of those words because this year has been a bit of a roller coaster as far as what I do. Writing has always been a road filled with self-doubt and insecurity, but it usually feels like the right road. Except when it doesn’t. And I want to quit. Which was often this year.

I re-branded my website a few months ago to signify a move into a new space. A really scary one for me. Fiction. I’m closing the chapter on nonfiction. At least for now. (I recently re-released a revised and expanded version of Holy Doubt and I’m really proud of how it turned out—including the cover! You can check it out here) and dipping my toe into the brand new, slightly overwhelming, waters of fiction. It’s scary, exhilarating, and I have little to no idea what I’m doing. So I’m learning every day.

In a recent conversation with a dear friend, I was reminded that God always pursues the one. In a world that clamors for the masses to notice, to approve, to like and validate, God is still all about the one. You. Me. And he pursues us through so many different avenues. Our work. Our families. Our hobbies. Our dreams.

And in this season he is making it abundantly clear that he is pursuing me—my attention, my affection, my focus—through writing and my weaknesses, which I feel acutely every time I sit down at the computer. But I’m learning to savor that feeling, because as I acknowledge my weakness, I'm also learning to lean into his strength.

I want to keep growing. To keep stretching into new things. Allowing God to work in new ways as I work in new spaces. Spaces I’m not altogether comfortable in yet. And maybe I never quite will be.

And I’m learning that might be okay.

Because as I find myself trying these new things, I'm asking for God to be near in a real way. One that makes me more dependent, less self-sufficient. Which, if I’m honest, is where I always want to live.

Maybe you can relate. Maybe you’ve found yourself caught up in the scramble to prove your worth and importance through what you do. Maybe you could use a gentle reminder that God cares more about who you are than what you do.

I believe, if we'll let it, what we do can become a beautiful tool that God can use to shape us into the man or woman he intended for us to be when he first dreamed of placing us on this earth, at this time in history. So whether you’re a fellow writer, a pastor, an executive, or a stay at home mom, these are just the ways we get to live out who we’re becoming.

And if God cares more about who I’m becoming than what I do, then perhaps I can hold all of it a little looser and allow what I do to become an expression of what God is doing in me. And I believe it’s in that space that God can do the most good. In me, and in the stories I tell. And hopefully in you, the person reading the words I write. Because I truly believe words hold power and a good story really can change us.

Here’s to a new year filled with the breathtaking adventure of allowing God to create through us and helping us better reflect his heart in all that we do and who he’s shaping us to be. May your 2020, and all that you do in it, be blessed with the freedom of knowing God is more interested in who you’re becoming than what you do.

Much love,

Erica

P.S. If you have a minute, please check out the new edition of Holy Doubt and let me know your thoughts. But don't just share them with me, I'd love it if you would leave a review on Amazon as well. Thank you, friends!