I’ve realized how much of adulthood is spent being needed.

Someone needs an answer.

Something needs to be done.

A problem needs to be solved.

A responsibility needs to be handled.

There is almost always someone or something asking something of us.

And after enough time…

being useful can quietly become part of our identity.

We start measuring good days by how much we accomplished.

Rest feels like something we have to earn.

Doing something simply because we enjoy it can somehow feel selfish.

And being needed begins to feel strangely similar to being valuable.

But those aren’t the same thing.

I wonder how much of my worth I’ve unknowingly attached to what I can do for other people.

Because eventually there will be moments when nobody needs anything from me.

Nothing to fix.

Nothing to accomplish.

Nothing to prove.

And who am I then?

Scripture tells me that before I ever did anything for God…

He loved me.

Before I could serve Him.

Before I could accomplish anything.

Before I could make myself useful.

I was His.

Maybe that’s something I need to remember more often.

My usefulness may change from season to season.

My responsibilities will too.

But my worth was never supposed to depend on either of them.

I don’t have to earn rest by becoming exhausted first.

I don’t have to accomplish something before I’m allowed to enjoy the day I’ve been given.

And I don’t have to be needed in order to matter.

Because before I am useful to anyone…

I am already loved by God.

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“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”
— 1 John 3:1 (NIV)