Pep Talk

Growing up there were many names that I answered to.  As a child my dad lovingly called me Dough Head, my sister called me Bacon and my uncle called me Butchy Beth, due to an unfortunate incident involving a pair of red handled scissors and my bangs.  As an adult my names are more limited to Babe, Mamma, Pastor, sister, friend, daughter.  Each of these names requires a different part of me, each part connecting together to make up who I am.  

The past few days a question has been rolling around in my head.  I have tried to answer this question based on one of my labels, but I keep coming up short.  The question that I am searching for is two fold.  First, who am I and second, am I enough?  It is only today that I have even been able to pinpoint the question.  There has been a restlessness and an unsettling within me that is unfamiliar and frankly unwelcome.  This morning I woke up with a whisper on my mind, a lie actually, it startled me awake with these words, You are not enough.  

This, then begs the question I am not enough for what?

Am I not enough for my husband, my kids or the church?  Where am I lacking and how can I make sure that I am enough?

It is so funny how God knows exactly what we need, long before we need it.  He gives us the answers to the questions that we have yet to ask.  He did that for me this week on this journey of discovery I have been on.  Tuesday morning when I awoke long before the sun was up I sat reading my Bible and drinking coffee.  It was that morning that God spoke an answer to a question I hadn’t asked yet.  I didn’t need it until I realized that my heart was asking me who I really am.

Jesus asks His disciples a question in Matthew 16:15, “who do you say that I am?”  It is in this moment that the spirit reveals the truth about who Jesus was to the hearts of the disciples. They had been with him and seen him performing miracles but it was in this moment that they realize he was the Messiah, the son of the Living God.  I realize this doesn’t mean much to everyone, but to me this is just what I needed.  Why does this matter to my question?  It is only in the revelation of who Jesus is that I can truly find my value.  This is the same Jesus whose spirit is living inside of me.  So I am a vessel of the spirit of God.  That is where my value lies.  

I talked to my husband about the way I had been feeling and he encouraged me to take my thoughts captive.  I have never had such a hard time doing that as I did today.  I couldn’t think of what to do, it was almost like I was frozen.  Frozen from doing something I regularly advise people to do! I started to pray and ask God what he says about me. Just that quickly I was reminded one of my favorite Psalms, “God is in the within her, she will not fall” (Ps 46:5)

My success and failure are not found in my abilities, they are found in Christ and He can not fail.  So many times I fall short, I come up empty.  There are days I let my husband down, I let the kids down and I feel like I am useless.  That is exactly where the enemy wants us to be.  He wants us to be believing that our value is found in what we do, but it isn’t.  

My value is found in Christ,  within me and before me.  I was worth enough for God to send His son to die for me, I was valuable enough to be a home for God’s very own spirit. When I try and find my value in earthly things, in things that are fading, I lose sight of my worth.  Comparison is a slippery slope that gets us so far off track.  It is not fair for me to look around and feel that somehow I don’t measure up.  What is the measuring stick?  

The mystery of the ages that was revealed through Christ, is that He is willing to live within us.  That is it, the message of freedom, nothing more and nothing less than Jesus.  I am enough because He is more than enough, and He lives within me.  Christ is all and is in all and that is enough.

So friends, here is your pep talk.  Forgive yourself.  You are not enough and you will never measure up.  There is a God however, who has chosen to put his spirit within you.  Just as you are today, you are enough for that.  You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to be special you only must surrender.  No matter what your sin is, what mistakes you have made and how many times you have failed,

YOU ARE A PERFECT VESSEL for the spirit of God.