Letting Go So That You Can Receive More
Have you ever felt like you were putting too much pressure on yourself or felt bad for not doing more in the area of your faith? Your Christianity should be refreshing not exhausting. This wasn’t always the case for me.
A Little Something Extra
In Louisiana you often hear the word “Lagniappe” being used. It means “a little something extra.” It’s something that can bring a smile to any cajun’s face as he or she expects to receive an extra piece of boudin or another scoop of jambalaya for dinner. When you get something more than you expected, you are experiencing “lagniappe.”
I used to be good at lagniappe, but not in a good way. I would always try to do a little more than everyone else. Not at work or in school, but in my faith. I would try to outperform – add a little lagniappe to my Christianity. One of the most regrettable examples of this was the first time I almost asked out Amy on a date.
When A Good Thing Becomes a Bad Thing
When we were in college, Amy and I were part of the same young adult ministry. Every year around Christmas time there was a banquet where we would dress up and ask out dates. It was something everyone looked forward to. I knew I wanted to ask Amy, but before I did, I committed myself to filling two rows (about 30 seats) with people I had invited to our monthly youth service.
While I was out trying to build my miniature ministry empire, someone else asked Amy as his date. She said yes, and I was crushed.
Here I was, trying to bring more people to church, and yet God was going to allow someone else to steal my date. Things didn’t seem fair. I was doing more, but getting less. A few days later I filled my rows but my heart was empty. Ok, that is a little dramatic. I filled my rows, but I was still without a date for the banquet. The lesson here is that a good thing can become a bad thing when it is done out of religious duty instead of relationship and joy. Your faith in Jesus should lift burdens from your life not add them.
Receiving God’s More
There are many things God wants to give us that a religious perspective will tell us we do not deserve and cannot have. This type of thinking will have us settling for less than God’s best and cause us to push our dreams off to the side.
God is not in Heaven holding good things back from us because of our lack of perfection. Out of His perfection He wants to give us good things that we couldn’t achieve or don’t deserve on our own. Religion says we have to wait until we are good enough to step up or step out. Grace helps us realize that we will never be good enough anyway. We will always need to rely on God and trust Him.
Lagniappe is supposed to be a good thing. We should enjoy the little something extra that God wants to give us instead of putting up barriers in-between us and what God has called us to do. Many times these are simply just excuses that allow us to avoid the fear of failure or rejection that we will have to face to do anything meaningful for God.
What would you do if you couldn’t fail?
What is God asking you to do?
What areas are you being confined by fear instead of led by faith?
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