Do you ever feel as if you never measure up? Not pretty enough. Not strong enough. Not rich enough. Not smart enough. Not successful enough. Don’t have your life put together enough.
Honestly, I feel like this more than I care to admit. I feel as if everything I do will never be enough to satisfy this culture that bluntly demands perfection and instant results.
I want to be the best for everybody, and not being the best is not enough. I want to say yes to everything because I HATE letting people down. I find myself spiraling down a never ending dark hole of people pleasing to one day hear the words “you are enough”. I feel as if I always have people telling me what I’m doing doesn’t matter, that I’m not doing enough or that I should keep trying harder even when I know I’m giving my all. I feel people breathing down my neck, and constantly making the decision to do what I feel I need to do or do the opposite to please the people around me. I have found myself wallowing in a puddle of self pity…
…trying to grasp for a ledge somewhere.
But it’s in the midst of these hard days God gently reminds me that when I spend more time in the world than His Word, I will always feel as if I don’t measure up. I will always feel a lack. I will miss his voice of peace, and the words of truth he speaks over me. The world tells me that I need to be flawless, successful and beautiful to be accepted. Social media is the root of feeling inadequate, unsuccessful, and ugly. We stare at a screen comparing ourselves to their body, their job, their followers, their clothes, and their happiness. It’s in this “I will never be enough” mind game that I begin to lose myself in the world and lose focus of the tender words of Jesus.
God’s Word tells me to come to Him with my ugly and brokenness, He wants me even at my worst and He loves me just the way I am. The world makes it about us, but God’s Word shifts our perspective from ourselves to Christ and the bigger picture of eternity. When we lose ourselves in the game of comparison and the mindset of I am not ______ enough, we drift away from the purpose that God breathed into us. God does not create, not ______ enough. He creates I am enough because of the one who breathes life into my lungs.
It is when I listen to the whisper and prompting of God over the shouts and demands of this world, that I begin to realize I don’t have to measure up. He isn’t looking at my popularity, my dating status, the size of my house, how perfect my family appears, the number of followers I have on social media or if I’m on top of the latest fashion trends. He is looking in the depths of my heart. He is saying come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest – true rest from the pressures of perfection, from the pressures of measuring up, from the pressures of being enough. I am not defined by what people think of me, I am not defined by the burden of doing more. I am defined by the one who is enough, by the one who whispers “You are enough”. I am His daughter, His workmanship, created uniquely in His sight to enjoy a relationship with Him and make Him known. He is not asking me to look perfect and do no wrongs. He is asking me to rest in His perfect hands, and let Him lead my heart in His truth. That’s what the gospel is – imperfect people who find their all in a perfect God.
This is what I want people to see in me. I was lost, I was broken, but He saw me in my weaknesses and made me whole. I want people to know my relationship with Jesus is not a list of rules but a reality of the grace he lavished on me. When I sit before God in His word, waiting to hear from Him, there is a rest that is greater than the noise. It becomes a healing balm to my heart and gives a joy that cannot be crushed by the messes in my life. I do not have to seek the approval of others by giving into worldly temptations so I can fit in, so I can be enough, because in Him I am enough. I have an indescribable joy that supersedes any “happiness” the world can offer me.
You will never be enough for this world because He is the only perfection. You will never find enough joy in parties, in sex, in having the best grades, or being the most popular, because you were created to fall in love with the Creator. He finds us in the vulnerable moments, in our broken souls, and His love covers us.
He sees into the depths of my soul and loves me just the same. In Him, I have no demands for perfection to measure up to and to discourage me. In Him, I have a love that fulfills me. In Him, I am capable, I am brave, I am significant, I am called. He is the soothing song that sings over my heart, and reminds me to stop striving and start thriving in His grace, love and truth. It’s in His love that we find purpose and it’s in a relationship with Jesus Christ that we find we will always measure up because in Him We Are Enough.
-Bo-Hartley