This Religion of Enoughness has given us a new word. A word that way too many of us are identifying with. Even giggling about.

Just when we think culture is doing away with religion (aren’t we more spiritual these days?!), our bodies need us to have a religion. Our DNA is wired this way. So while we bash the religion word, our body is doing whatever our body does to keep us in religion.

This news is not good for our bodies.

This new religion that has been created is hard on our souls, hearts, and bodies. This religion is very popular and exhausting us—as every religion of works is. I’ve named this the Religion of Enoughness.

Which now gives us the very popular “stresslaxing.”

Can I be present with those I love right now—in the present—and not be thinking and stressing about my to-do list?

Can I read that good book and not hustle for the next 3 hours after I took that break?

Can I stop hustling? That is one question. Can I stop feeling shame when I don’t hustle?

Is this your struggle?

We have come to believe that our work is our worth. We even believe our work is our worth and thusly earns God’s love. Just read many of the top “Christian” books these days. The message is there in funny stories and clever words telling us that this is a way to live your faith.

There is a different kind of best seller Christian book that opens with these beautiful words:

“We learn much in the four Gospels about Christ’s teaching. We read his birth, his ministry, and his disciples. We read of his birth, his ministry, and his disciples. We are told of his travels and prayer habits. We find lengthy speeches and repeated objections by his hearers, prompting further teaching. We learn of the way he understood himself to fulfill the whole Old Testament. And we learn in all four accounts of his unjust arrest and shameful death and astonishing resurrection. Consider the thousands of pages that have been written by theologians over the past two thousand years on all these things.

But in only one place—perhaps the most wonderful words ever uttered by human lips—do we hear Jesus himself open up to us his very heart:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

“In the one place in the Bible where the Son of God pulls back the veil and lets us peer way down into the core of who he is, we are not told that he is ‘austere and demanding in heart.’ We are not told that he is ‘exalted and dignified in heart.’ Letting Jesus set the terms, his surprising claim is that he is ‘gentle and lowly in heart.’

“…Who could have ever have thought up such a Savior?” –Gentle and Lowly:  The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, Dane Ortlund, pp. 17-19

Who is putting the expectations on your life? Who is pushing you to keep up?

It is not Jesus. It is not the way of Jesus.

Those are some soul-searching questions for you to take some rest and ask yourself.

This is not a moment to laugh at our new creation of “stresslaxing.” Take some rest. Listen to your soul. Your soul wants to be felt and seen by Jesus who is gentle and lowly. You feel that, don’t you?

Rest is a gift, a pure gift. There is no need to try to “perfect” it to please God. He is already pleased and nothing you do or don’t do can change that reality. (This may be a big view of God you haven’t thought of before. We talk about this God a lot on Bravester.) Rest is a way of loosening the grip. It’s an invitation into an identity that is free of enoughness.

Something for you:

Hello, beautiful.