You Are Not Enough

Wow, way to start off really positive, right? Who starts a blog of encouragement with You are not enough? Me, apparently. But the contents of this post are actually what inspired this entire blog, and I promise it’s much more encouraging than the title makes it sound!

So, some backstory: My junior year of college was exhausting. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, I was drained. In everything I worked at, everything I committed to, I fell short of my expectations. Even though I looked at all my commitments as opportunities to serve the Lord, nothing seemed to go right, and I was confused. Why wasn’t I good enough? I was working hard at things that mattered, and yet I wasn’t making any progress. By the end, I was in a period of greater self-doubt and spiritual dryness than I had ever been in.

Throughout the year, as I spent time in the Word, in prayer, and in church, I noticed a recurring theme. Humble yourself. God blesses the humble. Which left me even more confused than before. A lack of humility seemed to be the opposite of my problem – I had kept telling myself that if I could only get some self-confidence, could only be more bold, could only quit sabotaging myself with insecurity, then maybe I would succeed. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that God was pointing these passages out to me, and so I made a mental note to keep humility in the back of my mind.

Fast forward a couple of months. My exhausting year had peaked in pretty exhausting ways, and then I abruptly found myself in a position of complete and utter stillness. All of my busyness had ended, leaving me with nothing except quiet and room for reflection. As I spent less time running around trying (and struggling) to do things for God, I now spent much more of my time with God. And once again, humility came to mind. This time, however, there was more to it. Through the voices of friends, books, and Scripture, God revealed to me that while all that I was pursuing were good, productive endeavors, in each of them I was working in my own strength. Of course I would say, and even feel, that I was giving them up to God, but without even realizing it I would backtrack and try to retain as much control as possible.

And here’s the problem with that. When we try to make good happen by our own self-effort, we will undoubtedly fail more often than not. Then we’ll become discouraged and be too fearful or frustrated to be used by God again. And in the event we do succeed, our sense of self will inflate, and we’ll stop relying on God. So even though I felt that I was being humble to a fault, beating myself up for all my failures and inadequacies, the very fact that I was attempting to accomplish things on my own was a sign of pride – a sign that I expected myself to be able to succeed by my own strength.

And that’s the realization that I have repeatedly had to come to. I am not enough. Not only that, but I will never, under any circumstances, be enough. That’s the entire point of the gospel, and the entire point of grace. Christ died for us because we are incapable without Him: incapable of saving ourselves, incapable of serving Him, incapable of loving our neighbor. So we might as well embrace that truth and let Him fully into our lives. If we don’t, we will continue to fall somewhere between discouraged and prideful, between why-bother-trying and I-can-do-it-myself. But that’s not what God wants for us. His desire is to richly bless us and our endeavors, and to let us experience His love in ways we’ve never felt before.

What if, instead of berating ourselves for every weakness or insecurity, we started rejoicing in them, as Paul does in 2 Corinthians 12? How would that change our perspective on serving? Or on our ability to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves as we should? If we would dedicate ourselves to walking in humility, to striving simply to be faithful to God’s call, and to releasing this pressure of perfection, just how much peace and security might be recovered in our lives?

Related Scripture

2 Corinthians 12:9

“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 

Jeremiah 9:23-24

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not a mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me…”

Colossians 1:29

“For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.”

1 Peter 4:11

“Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”