He is Enough When the World Says You're Not, part 1

The Cross is enough…Jesus is enough…when the world says we aren’t enough.  As women, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all had times in our lives when we’ve felt inadequate or when someone else has made us feel inadequate.  From our parenting skills to our cooking abilities, from our financial stability to our job performance…it seems like there’s no shortage of people in our lives that make us feel as if we’re just not cutting it.  And as women, I think we are more susceptible to feelings of inadequacy.  I remember reading years ago that a man’s confidence comes primarily from his job…his ability to “bring home the bacon,” whereas a woman’s primary source of confidence is in others’ assessments of her.  I asked my husband to weigh in on the subject…thought it might be good to have a male perspective on the whole thing…and he agreed that, for the most part, it didn’t matter what other people thought of him.  He could feel confident in himself and his abilities regardless of outside opinions.  (This infuriates me, by the way.  He should totally be influenced by what I think!  If I don’t like his shirt or his haircut, he should change it!  After all, I do that for him!)  Women, on the other hand, seem to have a deep need for approval.  Without that reinforcement from other people, it’s so easy for us to question ourselves…our abilities…our worth.  Now I know that this isn’t true for every woman.  There are some of you that are entirely confident in yourselves regardless of what anyone else thinks of you.  But if you’re like me, you’re able to throw your shoulders back, hold your head high and do a pretty good job of convincing people that you’ve got it all together when in reality you’re quivering and quaking on the inside.  There are days when life screams at me that I’m a failure, when I question God’s decision to put me in charge of four little people, when I wonder if, perhaps, I’m the one mistake that God made.

I have never received criticism well.  I try to let it slide…after all, it’s just one person’s opinion.  I try to analyze their comments, figure out what they don't like.  And then I usually recognize that ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I'm not good enough.  Someone doesn't like me (or my work).  I feel inadequate and I hate it.  My worth is NOT wrapped up in another person’s opinion of me.  But too many times, my opinion of myself is so intertwined with what other people think of me that I completely lose sight of the fact that I am God’s creation and I am wonderfully made.

I have recently been drawn to the books of 1^st and 2^nd Samuel, and as I studied the early years of the life of David, I was struck by the fact that he – perhaps the greatest king of all times – was told multiple times that HE was not adequate.  I was amazed.  Surely this was a man who people respected from the time of his youth.  And yet, there it was, right there in the text.  I want to share those insights with you in the hopes that at least one will connect with you and your sense of not being “enough.”  It is my prayer that you will realize when the world tells you that you don’t have enough to offer, God says, “but I do, and because I live in you, you are more than enough.”

Next time: You are IMPORTANT, even when the world tell you you're not.