My daughter and I have been reading through the Never Girls series; she was gifted the first collection at for her birthday. We found the rest on our local library’s ebook borrowing system and have been reading them at bedtime and throughout the summer days. As I browsed for the next book, I came across Jennie Allen’s newest book, Nothing to Prove available in audio. I clicked borrow and have been listening to it over the course of the week, namely as I have been sanding and painting a few fun tables I found at thrift stores. Listening to her read as white paint brushed over the wood, filling its pours and the grooves. Covering over the scratches and little dents of its past life.
I think that is one of my favorite parts of old wood furniture. Its past life. Somehow dents and scratches came. Some can be sanded down enough to never be seen again; others stay, adding to its charm and my favorite term, its rustic character.
Jennie Allen read aloud, her words piercing as I painted. Truths of scripture pouring out and reminding me what it means to be enough. That is the premise of the book: We are not enough but Jesus is enough.
It is about leaning in to our weakness to find his strength (2 Corinthians 12:11) and our identities being tucked in to who Christ is, hidden in him (Colossians 3:3).
One point struck me, as more white paint gathered on my brush:
I am realizing it's not my curse that I believe I am not enough; it's my sin that I keep trying to be.
Pride can easily be entangled in being enough. When we are enough we simply have no need for God but in our weakness and firmly rooted in our identity in Christ, we can walk in confidence that God will always be enough, so we do not have to.
When we allow ourselves to repent for our feelings of inadequacy, changing the focus from pointing at ourselves to pointing directly at God and allowing God to bring about his sufficient grace and fully embrace that he is enough, we do not have to be.
We may not feel good enough as a wife or friend or mother or daughter or co – worker but God is enough and feelings are never facts. So much so that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. When we rely on him, we are enough for his purposes.
There is not a measuring stick or comparison to be enough for God. There is just one you and an ocean full of grace and love.
What would it look like to fully embrace God, allowing him to be enough? May we walk in grace this month and know that God is enough, so we do not have to be. May God guide you in your weakness that he may be greater, showing his glory through you.
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-11
Originally posted in The Inspire Monthly newsletter, September 2017.