“Yeah, but when can I quit?”

In the past this ques­tion might have come at me from my 10 year old who sud­den­ly does­n’t want to par­tic­i­pate in tap or it might have come from my 5 year old who hates soc­cer prac­tice.  The prob­lem is that we aren’t quit­ters.  We don’t quit. If we signup for soc­cer, then we fin­ish the sea­son. If we join a club, then we sup­port our teams and go. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this isn’t always the best pol­i­cy for my children.

While my boys were young, we focused on teach­ing them the impor­tance of integri­ty and work­ing hard so quit­ting was not an option. Now that the’ve learned the impor­tance of work­ing hard and com­plet­ing tasks, we’re start­ing to explore the idea that we can’t do it all.  Unlike God, we can­not do everything.

While mod­el­ing the impor­tance of ded­i­ca­tion and integri­ty with activ­i­ties and rela­tion­ships, we’ve failed to mod­el the impor­tance of self-care and slow­ing down.  If you can’t do some­thing well, then quit, has not been the mod­el for my home. 

Yet, some­times we need to stop.  Some­times, we real­ize that in our pur­suit of knowl­edge, friends, pres­tige, or even God, we’ve done too much.  God calls us, we don’t ini­ti­ate the call. He loves us and wants us to respond to His love, but that does­n’t mean run­ning our­selves ram­pant in the process. I strug­gle with want­i­ng to do more. I want to change the world, spread the gospel, feed the sick; but I often fall short. Instead of doing all things, some­times we should just do one thing. In this new year, as you’ve already set your goals, con­sid­er this: what did you decide to stop? What did God tell you to stop? 

Stop­ping isn’t always quit­ting.  Some­times it’s exact­ly what God wants us to do.