Struggling with “should.”
May 2, 2025
It’s a common phrase—just because you could doesn’t mean you should. And yet, I don’t think my brain even has a concept for this concept. On one hand, I hold a deep knowing. I recognize the fundamental truth in that saying. We can’t do all the things. Why? “Because it’s not humanly possible.” – a direct quotation of thought that’s diagnosis is my own flawed logic.
But then I feel the tension: if it is possible… then I should.
And yet, under this concept, I should not.
To “should” or to “should not”? Now that is the real question for the doers of the world.
I already know where this concept’s exploration will take me:
Do I find my value in my completed “should haves”?
Do I define failure by my undone “have nots”?
In my right mind, no.
In my reaction-based, decision-making, move-the-needle, “I can” mind… yes.
So where is the gap bridged—between what I know I ought to think, and what I can’t help but feel?
Romans 7 comes to mind. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do…”
It proposes the question: Are my “shoulds” actually unrest? Which propositions the transition: Is that the beginning of the bridge? – That this is rooted in restlessness.
And restlessness apart from the Lord is just that—apart from the Lord. Because He alone provides the truest, and therefore actual, definition of rest.
Even now, in the space between each intrusion of “shoulds,” I finally find time—conceivably—to craft something of my own hands. So then, perhaps these gaps are where true craft, true awareness, true leaning in is formed.
Is that the reason?
We know the physical side effects of unrest. But aren’t side effects merely byproducts of root causes?
If God created rest, then He designed it as a place—not of pause, but of power. A place in which He does His greatest work.
But this requires true rest. The kind modeled by Jesus.
And distraction cannot be counted as rest. For distraction is just that—distraction.
Therefore, rest must require stillness.
Therefore, rest must require stillness.
When I am not still—
not in my body,
not in my mind,
not in my spirit,
not in my heart—
then I cannot actually be at rest.
Even Jesus couldn’t rest while distracted.
The pull and demands of His surroundings required the only replenishing, connective rest to be found in solitude, silence, and stillness.
Distraction is the enemy’s most subtle, potent tactic.
We’ve grown so tolerant of it that even the word is no longer tolerant enough to contain the minute detail to encompass what God meant by it.
Sermons and discussions try to capture it—
“We all need to try to be a Mary in a Martha world.”
But to the doer, this feels impossible.
We can’t “try.”
“Try” is just another unchecked box on the “should” list.
So how do we implement without contradicting the very thing we’re acting against?
How does “try” not become another “should”?
My heart tells me posture is the difference.
But my doing nature needs action to say something was done.
Or in this case- not done as a credit to my evolving understanding of the concept itself.
Even here, at this point of the spiraling dissension of the thought pattern,
I sit in the unsettling of the undone “should” that would provide conclusion.
Yet I, myself, am undone.
And so, the irony reveals itself.
That in an effort to intentionally practice rest where it is rarely found,
I allowed distraction to carve way for pondering the very subject I was attempting to practice.
Distraction became the vehicle, not the thief.
It led to an unfolding—
a thought pattern explored not in spite of, but within and under the interruption itself.
Which, in a quietly humbling way, means this exploration may not have emerged at all without the initial interest in entering said rest.
Perhaps this is grace.
That even our interruptions are not exempt from invitation
Author, Kate Caris
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