IS DOING OKAY ENOUGH? Thoughts while following Jesus from the Edges.

Doing OK is Not Enough

Pastor Calvin Cook

September 12, 2025

I realize the anxiety and stress that has been created because of the events of the last couple days. If it is any consolation to you, I’m feeling it as well. With everything that has happened and returning to thoughts of past situations and what has happened continues to stir feelings that are not OK. Yet when we are asked “How are you?” the response is usually OK, Good, Alright, and other one-word responses that usually satisfies the asker.

I know most of us reason that “we will get through this”, but what about the one who can’t? How do we offer care, friendship, fellowship to the hurting. I have watched through mourning and grieving that not coming to terms with that grief regardless of how long it takes is a cancer that continues to eat at ones soul.

I believe we are living in a time or state of being when God is looking at His people and says, “You are doing OK, but OK is not what I created you for.”

In the Old Testament the people of Israel often found themselves in observing the feasts, practicing religion, and doing what was expected. But through the prophets, God reminded them that outward obedience without inward surrender was never enough.

In a lament and call for Repentance in Amos 5, when God through His prophet Amos is calling for repentance and turn around we read these words in verse14 “Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.”

God is not calling us to be just “doing OK”. Doing OK means we show up on Sunday, but forget His presence on Monday. It means our prayers are not just words or demands but seeking God’s guidance and protection and then living into that prayer request. It means we avoid the big noticeable sins but never move into the fullness of God and of holiness. It means we survive but don’t thrive. (Applicable to everything self, family, community, education, work, church, relationship, etc. etc. etc.)

Jesus did not come to this earth, to rescue us from sin and eternal damnation so we could just be OK or almost alive. We have received God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit so we could be fully alive in Christ overcoming everything, yes even our anxiety and depression.

The truth of the Gospel is that God doesn’t want us to settle for OK. The Spirit has been breathed into us, not so we can scrape by being OK, but so we can walk in a resurrected life, overflowing with His love, joy, and power.

One final word comes this morning from Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (NIV)

Just sit with God for a few minutes and allow the Spirit to speak to you – then go out and be better than OK –