Always Just Enough

You may have seen the film The Greatest Showman. With its phenomenal music, raucous dancing, and Hugh Jackman, what’s not to like, right? (Okay, perhaps the fact that it’s not at all true to P. T. Barnum’s life can give us pause. But as a stand-alone, mostly fictional film, it’s pretty rad.)

At one point in the film Jenny Lind, world-famous Swedish opera singer, takes to the stage to belt out the showstopper “Never Enough.” The song speaks of spotlights and stars, of towers of gold and the power to hold the world enraptured, but the chorus says it all: It’ll never be enough, never be enough for me. Never, never, never, never, never, for me.

 Have you felt this raw, gnawing hunger? This desire for more and more and more?

When life is handing out lemons, it can feel like getting that one thing you really want and have prayed for—health, success, a thriving relationship, a baby—will finally be enough. Yet when all is well—you get that promotion, put on that engagement ring, have that baby, step inside that new house—you may be surprised at how fleeting the feeling of satisfaction really is.

That’s the lie—that our fulfillment could come from anything we purchase or achieve on our own. Scripture teaches us t this simply isn’t the case.

In the book of Haggai, the prophet chastises the people of God for seeking more and more and more without paying attention to what God commands of them: “You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it” (Haggai 1:6 NIV).

Though they live in paneled houses—Hebrew for “really fancy digs”—they are dissatisfied. Though they gorge themselves on rich food, it doesn’t fill them up. Though they have all the fine clothing they could ever need, they still feel the chill of winter. This is the devastating treadmill of trying to find contentment anywhere but in Jesus Christ.

In late August of this year, my husband, Daryl, took me out to celebrate my birthday. We reminisced about the past twelve months over chicken kebabs at a little bistro, sipping our water and enjoying a respite from the joyful chaos of our church (we’re both pastors) and our kids.

We couldn’t remember a more joyful season in our eleven years of marriage. Daryl finally finished his Ph.D. We moved into our first little house, with lots of help from our church. We were expecting a third baby in just a couple of months. I’d written a book a great publisher was preparing to launch. The year had been almost embarrassingly filled to the brim with blessings. It hadn’t been an easy year (we jokingly called it the Year of Big Things and Hard Work and Pregnancy Barfing), but it had been an incredibly bright one.

Yet even amid a year of success and celebration, I’d felt the creeping fingers of discontentedness begin to threaten. It’s a fallen part of our human nature to long for bigger, better, brighter, even in seasons of blessing. When we’ve obtained what we thought we wanted, it’s still hard to stave off the question, “What’s next?”

“What do you think God is calling us to in this next year?” Daryl asked on our drive home through the winding lights of southern California.

“Quiet faithfulness in the small things,” I said.

“Agreed,” he said. “The question I’m mulling over these days is how I can be faithful with what we’ve been given.”

God’s blessing can either turn us to gratitude and contentment—when it’s rooted deeply in Christ—or into open voids of longing and discontent.

Our culture plays into this notion. We scrimped and saved for a decade for our first house (a modest three-bedroom), but our realtor wouldn’t stop calling it a “starter home.” I sent my first book off to the publisher, and an acquaintance mentioned that it was a “bummer you didn’t get signed with someone huge like Random House or something.” There are days it’s a blow to my ego to park our 2001 Toyota with its peeling paint between a couple of shiny new BMWs at the grocery store.

But I don’t need a bigger home, a more prestigious publisher, or a sparkling new car. If I did have those things, undoubtedly my eyes would look further up the ladder. When will it be enough? Never, never, never. At least, not without God’s help.

The prophet Haggai doesn’t stop by naming the problem of always wanting more. He also gives the solution: God’s people should turn back to God, fixing up the temple they’ve allowed to fall into disrepair and living lives of true worship.

Only when we recognize that all we have—our possessions, families, friendships, bodies, our very lives—comes from God will we begin to find that he is enough. That he has always been enough. Contentment is his to give, and he longs to pour it out in our lives until we overflow with his love.

In the book of Haggai, when God’s people turn to him once again, God promises them the rest they—and we—long for: “‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty” (Haggai 2:9 NIV).

Where do you struggle to believe your life is “enough”? How do you think God wants to meet you there?

Courtney Ellis writes and blogs at CourtneyBEllis.com. A speaker, pastor, and author of Uncluttered: Free Your Space, Free Your Schedule, Free Your Soul, she lives with her husband and three littles in southern California. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Photograph © Chungkuk Bae, used with permission