You Don't Have To Do "Great Things for God." #ICYMI

Jul 9, 2026 · 09:23

↗ https://thecrux.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-do-great-things-ad8

<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://herevergreensoul.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-do-great-things" target="_blank"><div class="image2-inset"><source type="image/webp" /><img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="1092" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RFbP!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcec6888f-5e8e-4e8a-bfb5-d51d8f04d867_4032x3024.heic" width="1456" /><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image" tabindex="0" type="button"><svg fill="none" height="20" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="1.5" viewBox="0 0 20 20" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image" tabindex="0" type="button"><svg class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2" fill="none" height="20" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><div class="callout-block">This is an essay that I continue to return to. I pray that it blesses you as it has blessed me. </div>Last week, <a href="https://thecrux.substack.com/p/did-you-take-a-sabbath">I ask about Sabbath</a>, wrote about<a href="https://thecrux.substack.com/p/here-is-what-happens-when-i-decide"> moving too fast and breaking things</a>, and <a href="https://thecrux.substack.com/p/river-of-currency">read a poem </a>on how capitalism shapes me and our world into someone I don’t recognize or want to be. And all of this sits on top of an idea, held together by a false theology that if I don’t do great things for God, then I could be dismissed from Our Father’s table and left out of His kingdom. When all along, my seat is fixed, my status remains and I can receive His grace as many times a day as necessary if I only open my hands.<div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble">This work is made possible by our paid subscribers. Please consider joining today!</div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input class="email-input" name="email" tabindex="-1" type="email" /><input class="button primary" type="submit" value="Subscribe" /><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div> is a spiritual director and she wrote <a href="https://herevergreensoul.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-do-great-things">“You Don’t Have to Do Great Things for God”</a>. I felt an unholy weight fall of my shoulders I didn’t know that I was carrying. It captures that sentiment and is very much worth our reflection and meditation. Check it out below!<blockquote>Please stop feeling as though you have to do great things for God.Please don’t feel the need to do something incredibly impressive for Him.He doesn’t need you to do that.This sentiment of “doing great things for God”may just be one of the biggest lies in the Kingdom. And one that reeks of Western individualism.</blockquote><a class="button primary" href="https://substack.com/@herevergreensoul">Subscribe to Amy's Substack</a><div class="pullquote">Many of those who are the first will be last, and those who are the last will be first.-Matthew 19:30</div>As a Spiritual Director, I sit with people as they work out their faith and salvation, listening for the heartbeat of God, discerning His voice, and encountering His love. In the course of hundreds of conversations, this sentiment of doing great things for God comes up again and again. It has caused much havoc and heartache in the heart of many a believer.So many come to Spiritual Direction sessions feeling as if they aren’t close to God or fully committed to God because they have no big thing to show for it. No ministry, no large following, no speaking engagements, book releases, no non-profits reaching the masses. They go to small churches or lead regular lives. They do beautiful things to honor God with their talents and time, not things others may notice, but beautiful, quiet ways of honoring God. Their normal lives look like most of ours—get up, go to work, love your family, come home, dinner, bed, and do it again.And they are haunted with the question, “Is it enough?”Early on our Eternal Father let us know it was indeed enough<div class="pullquote">The Eternal is our True God—He alone. You should love Him, your True God, with all your heart and soul, with every ounce of your strength. Make the things I’m commanding you today part of who you are. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you’re sitting together in your home and when you’re walking together down the road. Make them the last thing you talk about before you go to bed and the first thing you talk about the next morning. Do whatever it takes to remember them-Deuteronomy 6:4-8He has told you, mortals, what is good in His sight. What else does the Eternal ask of you But to live justly and to love kindness and to walk with your True God in all humility?-Micah 6:8</div>These are the things I believe God sees as doing great things for Him. But in the world of likes and followers, how could we ever think it is enough? The world emphatically tells us it isn’t.Aren’t all the things God puts in our path to undertake, great things?If it is an invitation from our great God, can anything He invites us into, whether seen by the world as great or small, be anything other than great?Apparently not, because if you have the gift of communication through words, it’s not enough to write, you must be a published author or have thousands of Instagram followers or subscribers on your Substack. Want to publish a book? What’s your platform? How many followers do you have on your socials? How many people come to your events? How have you numbers grown?Want to teach Bible studies? How many people come to your classes or your workshops? Do you write your own material or use produced material? Do you have a seminary degree? How often do you study?Want to help the homeless, foster kids, veterans? What’s your website look like? Have you considered becoming a 501(c) 3? Donations help you do more, go further. Oh, you’ll need to host fundraisers but that’ll take up most of your budget and your effort. But it’s imperative in order to get your name “out there” and get more money to support what you are doing. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get paid to do this too? You’ll need more donors and volunteers if you’re going to make a real impact.It seems we just can’t leave well enough alone. Everything must be done to the highest level of achievement. It must always increase and become more.Didn’t John the Baptist say just the opposite?<div class="pullquote">“He must increase, but I must decrease.” -John 3:30</div>There is no room in the modern world of Christianity for any of this decreasing business. The loudest voice gets the floor. Or the followers. Whether that’s opinions, socials, books, stages, or pulpits.What are we even doing?A handful of men and women changed the world without one single Bible among them. They didn’t attend workshops or retreats. There was no published guidebook, conference to attend, or social media platforms. They had the only thing they needed to affect the magnitude of change they did: they had a thriving, friendship with Jesus. Their time alone with Him and with those who followed Him was the only training they needed. And Jesus also sent His Spirit upon them.Because when you learn from Jesus, you’ve truly been schooled.They knew how to listen for His voice like good sheep.They watched the way He did life and ministry, the way He pursued God’s calling on His life and they did likewise. As Eugene Peterson translates it in Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus tells them to, “watch how I do it”. He once did an on-the-job training event for them to get a feel for what lay ahead. (Matthew 10)Notice I didn’t say they watched the way He pursued His calling.He didn’t pursue His calling, He pursued the calling God had on Him.There’s a big difference.(Luke 2:49) (John 8:28) (John 10:18) (John 12:49) (John 14:10)<div class="pullquote">Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.- John 5:19</div>How can we then do great things for God when our own Savior did not prioritize this in His one, brief life?It might seem I’m looking at this too literally. I assure you I understand that perspective. But this idea has become like the Fib in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnaYI_qA6QM">Larry Boy and the Fib from Outerspace</a>. It’s outgrown itself in monstrous ways and become way more than perhaps was intended. Because far too often in the Kingdom we may set out to do great things for God and end up doing great things for ourselves.It has now become the great measuring stick of a Christian’s life for far too many of our brothers and sisters. They feel paralyzed to do anything because it’s not big enough or they know they weren’t given the capacity for such tasks and callings. So we idolize the Christian celebrity, the Christian influencer who somehow figured out how to gain the whole world and keep their own soul alive and thriving, while many others feel like they’ve missed the mark somehow.Does everyone with a large “following” or ministry have it backwards? Absolutely not. But not everyone in those positions set out to do great things for God. Many of them just joined God where He was already at work, as Henry Blackaby spoke of in his classic work, Experiencing God. In joining God in His already-and-always-at-workness, they stumbled into co-creating with Him in what the world sees as big ways. And to God be the glory for those lives! Have we not all been impacted by that work of God in their lives and ours? Yes and amen, we have.But what we see far more often, are believers being encouraged from stages and pulpits and platforms to pursue their calling far more than they are encouraged to pursue God.<blockquote>Let me pause here and say that we don’t pursue God, He pursues us.(Romans 3:11) (1John 4:19) (Luke 19:10) (John 3:16-17) (Revelation 3:20)</blockquote>We simply have the unbelievable opportunity to say yes to the invitation to walk with Him when He comes for us.I’ve seen the underbelly of a few of those lives in the Kingdom we may think have it all figured out—don’t idolize it, don’t desire it. It’s not always what you think it is. Things aren’t always as they seem. The price is too high and sadly in some cases, it’s a price they have exacted on themselves, not one requested by a loving Father who invites us to instead:<div class="pullquote">Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Put My yoke upon your shoulders—it might appear heavy at first, but it is perfectly fitted to your curves. Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. When you are yoked to Me, your weary souls will find rest. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.- Matthew 11:28-30</div>When we set out, with beautiful intentions, to do something great for God—and usually what goes without saying is that it’s something big, noticeable, followed—we end up weary, burdened, carrying a heavy yoke that feels like Saul’s armor (1 Samuel 17:38-39). We lose our ability to be gentle and humble because we are tired and worn out. Our weary souls can’t find rest with all the doing and performing and making our dreams happen.This scripture though says, His calling He chooses to invite us into is, light? It’s perfectly fitted to us? You mean we can learn from Him? We don’t have to have it all figured out, have all the answers, plans, visions, followers already in place? Could there possibly even be a gracious room for error as we follow Him? Is He saying that in this calling He crafted to fit us, rather than the one we’ve created to show our best talents and skills, could leave us a more gentle person, a more humble person? Because spinning and creating and being apart of algorithms that just demand more and more content, and content better than the last thing, just leaves us feeling…hunted. We are often left feeling like we can never catch up, we can never get “there” and we usually do one of two things with that realization.<blockquote>We either dig in and sacrifice more on the Great Things for God Altar or we walk away and feel like we failed Him. Now you tell me, who gets the most glory from that?Hint: it ain’t God.</blockquote>There is a passage in 2 Samuel 7:1-17, that I really encourage you to take the time to read. Really, it is totally worth your time (as all Scripture reading is….) King David, man after God’s own heart, hero of Israel, comes up with a great idea. He’s gonna build God a temple. What an amazing undertaking, spilling out of love for who God is, how worthy He is of such a dwelling, and no doubt a testament to all God has done for David personally and for the nation of Israel. God’s prophet, Nathan? He says, “Go for it David. Got is behind you 100%”.Except, God wasn’t.<div class="pullquote">After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.”But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’ -2 Samuel 7:1-7</div>What just happened here?Did God actually reject the great thing David was about to do for Him?Yep, He absolutely did. Why? Because God never asked Him to do it.And that my beloved brother or sister, is why we miss the mark.It takes an incredible amount of discernment to know when God is asking us to do a particular job in the Kingdom. It could take weeks, months, and yes, even years. It could take hours of listening to wise counsel and prayer. For us in the modern world, that’s a problem. We need answers now. We want a plan by the end of the week. We start telling others about our big idea about 2.5 seconds after it lands in our brain as a mere thought.Creating further difficulties for us, is that we are still drinking milk when it comes to the gifts of discernment in the Church. (1 Corinthians 3:12) (Hebrews 5:12-14) (Isaiah 28:9-10) The Church has taught us far more on how to make good choices and decisions, and far, far less on how to discern God’s voice. We are much better at deciding, and so was David in this instance of temple-building. We have an idea and off to the races we go! We see with Nathan, that those whose judgment we trust even more than our own, are not immune to getting it wrong too. After all we think, how could God possibly say no to us doing something so amazing in His Name? Something like sharing His Gospel, feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, loving the unloved, and so forth.But, if we get still (Psalm 46:10) and really listen for that still, small voice, we may hear God say, as David did in 2 Samuel above, “Did I ever say….?”Man, is that a gut punch, a total rain on our parade, a cosmic Debby-Downer moment. When we have an idea bursting inside of us, (and I perpetually have ideas bursting inside of me, with notes all over my desk, and notations in my Notes app) a calling we just know is of God, those four little words could be the most disappointing words we could ever hear. Unless…Unless we practice the beautiful discipline of <a href="https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-indifference/">indifference</a>. It is a practice of St. Ignatius of Loyola, hidden within the beautiful journey of The Spiritual Exercises. It goes against everything in us at times, which I think is the point, and it takes patience and practice before we can see the beauty and freedom within it. I love the summary of this article about indifference:<div class="pullquote">Ignatian indifference is about cultivating an internal freedom that allows one to make choices based on what is most aligned with God's will, rather than being driven by selfish desires or external pressures. - <a href="https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-indifference/">ignatianspirituality.com</a></div>Imagine a life in Christ, so deeply aligned with Him, that you can make choices solely based on whether or not this is truly what God desires for you. Taking the time you need to discern (not decide) what the path is that He is inviting you to walk upon with Him, as you co-labor to do a work that glorifies Him and enriches you and others. It’s possible! But a pretty big cross has to be lain down in order to do so (Matthew 16:24) (Mark 8:34) (Luke 9:23). And I believe if you hold His hand and follow Him as the Friend that He is, you are fully able to do this.For He will never ask you to do anything for which He has not only equipped you and revealed to you His desire for you, but for which He has not already planned to be your Guide. That’s just what a loving Father does for his kids. He always goes before us, long before we’ve drawn our first breath. He knows the plans He has for you. Plans, that unlike our own, are designed to prosper you and not harm you, and to give you hope in your final outcome (Jeremiah 29:11). So let Him lead, because whether or not you allow Him to, He already is.Then you will discover that the great adventure you long to set out upon isn’t doing great things for God. It’s doing great things with Him.<div><hr /></div><div class="captioned-button-wrap"><div class="preamble">Thanks for reading Her Evergreen Soul! This post is public, please pass it along</div><a class="button primary" href="https://thecrux.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-do-great-things-ad8?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share">Share</a></div><div><hr /></div>📷: The photo above is a personal photo taken on the Isle of Iona. St. Oran’s Chapel sits with The Abbey and the Sound of Iona and hills of Mull in the background.📖: My dear friend, Polly Payne of Horatio Printing has come out with a new volume of her <a href="https://www.horacioprinting.com/products/seasons-of-soap-vol-5">Seasons of Soap </a>Bible study series and wrapped up in all that goodness is a section on discernment. Cannot recommend this resource for you enough!📖<a href="https://www.horacioprinting.com/products/seasons-of-soap-vol-5">Seasons of Hope: Volume 5</a>