When What You Have Doesn’t Feel Like Enough

I know the catch in your lungs that tells you you’re not enough, that today’s needs outstrip the strength in your bones and the fight in your gut. You heard God call, but you feel deep inside that it’s beyond you. Your heart and mind begin to wrestle.

What if God asks something of me I can’t do?

What if I’m the only one?

What if I find out I’m just not good enough?

The “what-ifs” gather, mob-like, threatening to knock you down. They want you to despair and run away. Fear separates from the crowd, sidling up to you like an old friend. He warns you that protection is the only sane course of action. He tells you there’s no shame in retreat. With fear whispering in your ear, you desperately want to lie down and curl up into a protective ball.

What if I ruin my children?

What if I can’t survive the pain?

What if God isn’t really trustworthy?

These “what-ifs” get so loud that they often make us miss the biggest “what-if” of all. What if fear isn’t a friend? What if it’s playing both sides like a secret agent and is actually the leader of the enemy mob? Maybe the pounding in your chest isn’t meant to be a warning of danger, but a herald announcing adventures and miracles that fear wants to cover up?

What if the fight against fear is really our biggest battle?

Fear can send us straight into panic mode, but the truth is, fear’s only power is the power of suggestion. It can’t force you to forfeit and leave the fight. Fear can lie to you, but it can’t hurt or even lay a finger on you.

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As you are face down in the dirt surrounded by a jeering mob with fear’s whispers reverberating in your mind, you have to make one significant decision. You must decide whom to believe. You choose which fears to heed. You can give into fears fueled by “what-ifs,” and they will paralyze you. Or you can let the fear of missing a miracle steel your courage to stand and fight.

The “what-ifs” might be possible,  even probable, if you lived an ordinary life, a life in which one plus one always equals two and what you can see and touch are the only dependable things. But if you are a child of God, you don’t live in that type of world at all. God’s Word has plunged you into a wild and wonderful place that uses a completely different measure to define you and predict your future.

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness…” (2 Peter 1:3a, ESV)

Therefore:

There are resources at your disposal this very moment, making it possible for you to live out God’s call.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lam. 3:22-23, NIV)

Therefore:

A feeling or situation does not have the power to thwart God’s plan. A new portion of God’s mercies was laid out for you for this very day, this very challenge.

If these two certainties aren’t enough to give you courage, Jesus provided a striking scenario of the disciples facing a situation in which the needs far outpaced the resources available. A large crowd following Jesus was hungry, and Jesus instructed the Twelve to feed them. Objections rolled easily off the disciples’ lips: “That’s impossible! There’s nowhere to buy bread for all these people, and even so, it would require eight months’ wages!”

Jesus didn’t dispute the facts; he simply asked, “What do you have?”

Among the vast crowd of hungry bellies, only five loaves and two fishes could be found. Despite its insufficiency, this pitiful offering was put into Jesus’ hands. He gave thanks and did what only Jesus can do, satisfying the hunger of five thousand with what appeared to be not nearly enough.

Miracles are pending if you can only muster the courage to stand before the Lord and hold out the tiny offering in your hands. The God of loaves and fishes will do what he does, multiplying what you’ve given until it satisfies with plenty to spare. And you will have stood, heart pounding, through the eye of an adventure fear wanted you to miss, an adventure that will convince your heart that you don’t have to be enough, because Jesus is.

 

Lori Florida’s life is all about her people. She’s convinced that being Mrs. to one and Mommy to eight will be her most significant way to serve Jesus. She wants to use her life to cheer on and coach the women coming behind her. Lori blogs at loriflorida.com.

Photograph © Dayne Topkin, used with permission