I’m not enough

I see the phrase, “I am enough” everywhere these days. I get the sentiment behind it. Everywhere we look these days we see our own insufficiencies. We carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. We have enough stress to last a lifetime. Sometimes we need the reminder that we don’t have to do it all. We are loved just as we are.

But may I be honest with you for just a moment? Because when I read “I am enough” I want to cringe and crawl under the nearest chair.

Friends, I am not enough. 

I will never be enough. I will never have enough strength on my own to face what tomorrow brings. I will never have enough patience of my own to mother my children the way God asks of me. I will never have enough love to go out and serve others and love them unconditionally. I will never have enough resources of my own to fulfill the callings God has on my life.

I am not enough.

But, He is.

I think that as believers, this is the message we need to be proclaiming from the rooftops. We don’t even have to try to be enough on our own. We don’t have to feel guilty that we aren’t enough in this area or that.

Even hearing the words “I am enough” causes condemnation to well up within me because deep down in my soul I know I truly am not enough. I will never have enough strength, enough love, enough grace, enough knowledge, enough of anything.

There is freedom in acknowledging that we are not enough. You know what the freedom is, though?

Christ in us is enough. He is always enough.

Christ in us is our hope. Telling ourselves that we are enough will never satisfy the deep holes in our hearts that were created to be filled only by Him.

Telling ourselves that we are enough will not allow us to live victorious lives totally and completely dependent on Christ’s redeeming power.

But, praise God, telling our hearts that Jesus is enough will fill us to overflowing. Because that is what Jesus does when He invades our dry and parched souls.

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-10.

He is strong in our weakness, not our enough-ness. He is strong for us. His strength in us is more than sufficient.

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” Isaiah 40:29.

“He says, I am the Bread of Life.

He is the Bread of Life. We are not.

He says, I am the Light of the World.

He is the Light. We are not. 

He says, I am the Door.

He is the Door. We are not. 

He says, I am the Way, the Truth. 

We are not. 

He is enough. We are not.” 

Jennie Allen from Nothing to Prove

Friends, for today, let’s rest in the fact that we are not enough. Let’s rest in the freedom that Christ paid it all and is all. Let’s acknowledge that we aren’t enough so that we can loudly proclaim that He is!

If you need more encouragement to remind your heart of His enough-ness, I highly recommend the book Nothing to Prove by Jennie Allen.