Do Enough; Be Enough

Tonight I have some homework that really needs to be finished. My laundry hamper is overflowing with dirty clothes that I am not really sure when I will get the chance to wash if I don’t handle it today. I have some unopened text messages that really need a response before tomorrow morning, and my to-do list is not all checked off. Instead, however, of completing all of those tasks, my fingers are racing across these keys.

Let me give you a bit of a backstory that might give you more clarity of what is going on…

For the majority of my life I have raced to work my way to completion. You see, I have battled countless days with the thoughts that if I did not do enough, complete enough, or be enough I had, in a sense, failed at that day. I wasn’t enough. I didn’t do good enough.

Day in and day out for the past however so many years of my life I have lived under this weight of working for _______ fill in the blank. And I have fallen into the trap of believing the lies that if I did not work hard enough, if I slid, if I gave in, if I didn’t do enough then I wasn’t enough.

I’ve walked in the weight of those lies for far too long. The idea of “works based grace” has not become so foreign to my way of thinking.

As I look and see the seasons of my life beginning to change, the leaves are turning colors, and soon all will look different. When I look ahead to those coming days, that weight that I am not enough if I do not do enough does not just creep into view it invades my soul. And I am heavy and I am tired of walking under that weight that I must BE enough, in order to be enough.

I must say this loud and clear. I must get this point across:

I serve a God that is faithful.

And I serve a God that is, by all definitions of the word, enough.

In light of that truth, there is freedom. Freedom that allows me to throw off the weights of working to reach a standard that I do not have the power to reach.

I am not enough. It’s true. And I don’t have to be. Because HE is enough.

He worked hard enough to be enough to cover all of my sins, all of my insecurities, and all of my struggles against the lies battling to win over my soul- so that I, too, could be enough.

In him, I am, by all definitions of the word, enough.

I am not encouraging a spirit of laziness, or pointing towards a life of apathetic living. I am, however, screaming at the top of my lungs, that I do not have to do enough to be enough, and praise God! that neither do you!

So, tonight, my homework will get done, but maybe not till later! I will find the time to do the laundry, or either just wear something else! My to-do list will eventually get checked off. But, the great things is, I can accomplish those things with a spirit of joy and thankfulness. I can look forward to the season of change that I am facing with excitement with full confidence in His guidance, in His wisdom, and in His grace- because it is enough.

Doing enough, does not make me enough.

Enough was already done on the cross, and now I stand covered by the love and the righteousness of the only one who is… enough.

Praise God! Bless his holy name!

By Emily Jones