When God Is Enough

Today was a great day at church! God's presence was so real and it is just awesome when he chooses to meet with his people.  All that to say, I feel like I should share a part of the Sunday School lesson from my class this morning.

I think sometimes we say God is enough, our supplier, our sufficiency with our lips, but our lives don't reflect that as much.  God's been showing me very clearly that he is truly all I need.  I don't need a loving husband, great kids, a steady job that I enjoy or a great church family. I am blessed because I have all of these, but who I am, the source of my strength and my life is not from these things. It is all from him, because he alone is enough for me.  The world teaches us to depend on ourselves, our jobs, our families, our friends, but God asks us to depend on him.  Because he is enough.

When God is enough we are grateful for his provision and his plan for our lives, whether we see it and know it yet or not.  I think it pretty easy to be grateful when God meets a need because we are in the place of victory, the end of the struggle, the conclusion of the storm.  But it is much more difficult to be grateful for God's plans when we are in the middle of the boat, rowing in the storm, with no help in sight. If we are honest with ourselves, when we are in a difficult place, we often choose to grumble instead of be grateful. Because we don't understand what God is doing and we don't see the provision yet. Or because God's plan is not what we think we want or need.  Because our plans are proven and they are better, or so we think. In Numbers 16, we see Korah, chosen to be a Levite who was unhappy with God's plans for him.  He thought his way was better and he wanted the recognition of a priest, so he rebelled against Moses and Aaron.  Ultimately, the earth opened up and swallowed Korah and all his family.  

There is way too much comparing going on in the kingdom of God.  We always see God's plan for someone else as superior to ours and we get jealous.  And instead of God being enough for us, we grumble and are ungrateful for the plan he has for us.  Let me say that God's ways are higher than ours and every job in the Kingdom is important.  God doesn't pick favorites, but he places us where he made us to be.  We have got to get back to God being enough for us and stop trying to be the greatest and best and most seen by our own methods.

When God is enough, we won't look to anyone else for satisfaction or fulfillment. Let me be honest to say this is really hard for me.  My love language is words of affirmation so if I don't hear someone saying something positive about me or my efforts, my tendency is to think that I have failed them.  But God is enough for me.  His opinion is all that should matter to me.  I am working on it, but I'm not there yet.

Let me throw myself out there and say God is enough for me even if I never have a biological child.  Since we've been on this adoption journey, I have heard more times than I care to count something along the lines of "you know as soon as you get those kids, you are gonna show up pregnant" and I've laughed it off but in the back of my mind I gave the devil an inch of space to put doubt about God's provision.  I haven't entertained it much, but as God was trying to teach me to rely on him only as my source and that he was enough, I was reminded of the fear that looms in the back of my mind and shows its ugly head once in a while. But what if I am the exception, God?  Will I still think you are enough for me? Yes. I choose to let God be enough, even if I never see what I still believe is the rest of the fulfillment of his promise to me. 

At the end of Hebrews 11 there is a verse that has bothered me for some time. It says "They were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised."  We are able to stand on God's word and go day to day because we are holding on to God's promises for us.  And yet, not everyone in the Bible saw God fulfill his promise.  It was fulfilled because God doesn't lie, but not necessarily in their lifetime.  That is really scary for me.  To trust in God, believing he knows better even to the point that I may not see the end of this struggle this side of heaven.  But I still hold on.  Because his ways are better than mine.  Because he is truly enough for me.