The Good Thing vs. The Right Thing

A few months ago, I stepped into a women’s discipleship group with genuine hope. I wrote about it here — how eager I was to join a circle of women pursuing Christ together, sharpening one another, and cultivating depth. I believed that a group centered on discipleship would deepen relationships and strengthen spiritual growth. I entered with seriousness, sincerity, and a desire to be accountable and be known by my sisters. I long for community.

But when I joined, I was already in a season of unusual fruitfulness. God had given me a rhythm of prayer, study, and writing that felt like a gift placed directly into my hands. I was lingering in Scripture with joy. I was writing with clarity and conviction. I was studying with hunger. The fruit was real, and it was abundant. I had convinced myself that joining a group was the best way to build on this foundation and unlock a new level of discipleship.

Then the assignments began — weekly reading, memorization, structured discussions, and the emotional vigilance required to navigate a group that included a woman who is (as far as I can tell) not yet a believer. In addition to the assignments, I found myself truly wrestling with questions I had not anticipated:

Who should I allow to speak into my life?

What posture honors Christ in a spiritual accountability scenario with someone who does not yet know Him?

Can I be what she needs without abandoning what the group is meant to be?

Those questions were not small. They were not neutral. They were spiritually weighty. They require prayer and self-examination. They require time.

At the same time, our Sunday School class launched a Revelation study with daily reading and memorization as components. My husband and I both take it seriously, and our home has been buzzing with debates about symbols and interpretations of the end of days for weeks now. We help each other practice the memory verse and share insight and ideas throughout the week. It has been wonderful to see my husband light up the way he has, turning over these big eschatological questions and thinking through the implications.

We have also started attending a weekly young family's fellowship, which has been a wonderful time for our whole family. It can be a bit much having so many kids running around while we try to have a conversation about that week’s sermon, but our families are growing closer. My kids genuinely look forward to it, as do I. These are also discussions that require preparation (and food that requires preparation), but it is an easy investment because the group is on equal footing and the benefits are so apparent.

All of these are good things — genuinely good things — but they are all assignments. They are all structured, externally-paced forms of discipleship.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the gift God had given me began to shrink.

My writing slowed. My character studies stalled. I had been faithfully starting the character lesson every Saturday morning, but then it began to slide later and later in the week as I caught up on other lessons and prepped for meeting time. Before long I wasn’t so much spending time with these Biblical characters as I was simply completing another assignment. My time in Scripture became task-driven instead of worship-driven and my creativity dulled under the weight of obligation.

I wasn’t in rebellion, I wasn’t being lazy, and I wasn’t undisciplined and yet I was feeling the weight and stress that comes from disobedience. Had I inadvertently taken on too many good things and missed the right thing?

This Pattern in Scripture

I’ve seen this before. Scripture repeats this pattern again and again: God gives His people enough and warns them against gathering, carrying, or attempting more than He has asked.

In the wilderness, God gave Israel daily bread, but only the portion He appointed. When they tried to gather more, it rotted. More than God asked for became disobedience. Faithfulness was measured by receiving what God gave, not by accumulating what He didn’t.

Moses tried to carry the entire nation on his shoulders until Jethro confronted him: “What you are doing is not good; you will surely wear yourself out.” Moses wasn’t sinning. He was simply doing too much. Even good work becomes destructive when it exceeds the boundaries God sets.

In Acts 6, the apostles faced a real need - widows being neglected. It was a good thing to address. A righteous thing. A compassionate thing. But they said plainly: “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.” Serving widows wasn't beneath them, but taking on another good thing would have compromised the right thing God had entrusted to them.

Jesus Himself withdrew from crowds, from needs, from opportunities. He walked away from people who wanted healing. He left towns where more ministry could have been done. He shows us that obedience is not measured by how much we take on, but by how faithfully we steward what the Father has actually given.

Across Scripture, the pattern is unmistakable: God gives His people specific work, specific rhythms, specific callings — and even good things become obstacles when they crowd out the thing He actually asked of them.

I must refuse to let spiritual busyness masquerade as spiritual fruitfulness.

The discipleship group is not bad. The Revelation study is not bad. The fellowship time is not bad. But together, they became a weight that crowded out the very thing God had already placed on my heart.

Yesterday, I woke with conviction - not guilt, not frustration, but clarity. I need to leave the D group. Saying it out loud brought immediate relief.

Discipleship is important. Accountability matters. And what I missed was that God had already begun a work in me to grow my discipleship with accountability. It grieves me to realize I let that gift sit dormant while I sought out the very thing He had already given me. It was an honest mistake, born of good intentions, but it was still an error.

When my one faithful reader (hey, girl) asked why I hadn’t been posting, it was confirmation. A gentle reminder that the fruit God was producing had begun to wither under the weight of assignments He never asked me to carry.

So I’m stepping away, and stepping back into the growth God already started. Stepping back into obedience.

Sometimes the hardest spiritual decision is not choosing between good and bad, but choosing between good and right.

And I want to choose the right thing.