Enough

While i was cleaning up the remaining bits of my old apartment, i kept wondering, how clean does it need to be? Am i doing enough? As i thought about it more, i realized that i face this question everyday. I'm always wondering if i'm doing _enough_ for my Ph.D program to eventually graduate. Emily is always worried that she's not doing _enough_ for her job (even though all the teachers say she's doing "beyond expectations"). Which leads me to the questions, how do we know when it's "Enough"?

Often we don't know what the standard is, thus, one thing we do is to try and measure against other people. We falsely compare ourselves to other people which either creates a sense of guilt (i'm not doing enough), or complacency (he's doing way less than i am). My spiritual journey is like this all the time. It's hard to judge whether i'm doing "enough" for God (since most of the time i think i'm not). Thus i start comparing to other people to find excuses (I'm doing more than him/her), or i fee guilty that i'm not doing enough, so i try to do more but for the wrong reasons...

I believe this constant battle of trying to do "enough" is us trying to "earn" approval. This is the exact opposite of what God wants. He simply wants us to be loved by him first. This goes for everything else in life as well. There's no point in me trying to compare myself to other Ph.D students. The standard is set by God, and i'm doing it all for him. Not to "earn" his approval, but to glorify him! I hope that we can all approach our lives in this way, so we're not motivated by guilt, nor are we slowed by complacency. We're simply doing everything for Him!

*P.S. Because of moving, this entry spanned a whole 5 days since last Friday..