I am not enough
/The sun filters through not-quite-opaque leaves, like tiny panes of stained glass under a cloudless sky, and the air is clean and clear and cold. The last sunny day of October, and it is glorious. God has painted the world.
But in my head, it's chaos. So many ideas, concepts, questions surging, and a little bit of panic that I'll never write everything I want to write, never teach everything I want to teach, never accomplish everything I want to accomplish. I'm afraid that there isn't enough time, or that I don't have enough talent, or that I can't reach enough people.
Sometimes the vision just feels too big and I feel too small.
I want to teach the Bible. I want to help people fall in love with the God of Israel. I want to write studies and create tools and steward my talents well for my Master.
Today I don't feel like enough for that vision. I'm discouraged by the numbers and distracted by comparison and disappointed by my own lack of focus.
But when I walked under the trees, with the yellow leaves raining down like golden raindrops, I began to feel my head clear for the first time in days. All the different voices and fears and thoughts went silent, except this one: He is enough.
And it isn't just that He's big enough for the vision. Of course He is - He is the Author of it.
He's also enough for me.
He's enough to fill in my gaps and boost my weaknesses. He's enough to take care of the results that I can't control. And if I never write another word, if I never teach the Bible to another soul, if I never accomplish anything worth noting in my whole life... He is still enough for me.
I have nothing to lose - and everything to gain - in this life and the next, because I walk with God. The rest, by comparison, is rubbish.
I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.
Philippians 3:8
The man who taught me almost everything I know about studying the Bible once said, "Just do what God tells you to do, and let Him save the world."
To me, those are the words of rest and freedom to a mind worn down and imprisoned by fear and self-reliance.
He is the God who called a stutterer to be His mouthpiece to Pharaoh. He is the God who chose a mass murderer to be the father of the holy priesthood. He picked a barren old woman as matriarch of the whole nation of Israel and an unmarried young virgin to carry His own Son. We are never enough. And He knows it.
But He is. And I think He delights in displaying His glory through vessels that are less than glorious.
Taking the next step forward with Him becomes so much lighter and freer when I realize my job is just to obey, and let Him do the rest.
The vision is big. I still want to teach the Bible and to equip people to know God personally and intimately. I can't wait to run Bible180 again, to write more studies, to grow this community and to see what God does with my obedience. Big or small.
And only because He is enough.
