Whatever you think, you are enough

The move from one year to the next is often a time for reflecting on the highs and lows of the last 12 months and thinking about changes that could be made in the next 12. It can be a time of celebration, but it can so easily become a time of beating oneself up. About changes that weren’t made as planned last year. About perceived faults and failures. About missed opportunities. About the oh-too-easy sense of being or doing not quite enough, or of letting people down with the things we do or don’t do.

I’m sure most of us do it from time to time, if not far more often. We set ourselves impossible goals, measure our successes against unachievable targets and wonder why we come out feeling like dismal failures.

Worse still, we fall into the trap of measuring our success, or lack of it, based on the achievements or actions of others – and usually it’s people we perceive to be better or more successful than us. We forget that our role in life isn’t to be the person down the road; each person’s role is to be him or herself.

Put simply, we don’t give ourselves a chance. We’re so preoccupied with beating ourselves up over the one thing in 10 that we don’t get spot on that we don’t give ourselves the time or space to celebrate the nine things in 10 that go well. We overlook all that is positive in our lives and about ourselves and we think we’re not good enough.

Today’s message is a simple but vitally important one: You are enough.

Whatever your position. Whatever your faults and failings. You are enough.

However many things you didn’t do this week that you think you should have done, you are enough.

However many people you didn’t get round to catching up with over Christmas, you are enough.

However many good deeds you meant to do but didn’t quite fit in, you are enough.

A couple of weeks ago I was chatting to a friend – a community figure whose life is spent serving others – and I got the sense he felt he needed to justify to me why he wasn’t spending Christmas (or, at least, the bit of the day he wasn’t already committed to work) doing voluntary work. Hello, you’re allowed a day off. Just because some people volunteer on Christmas Day doesn’t mean those who don’t are lesser humans. Each person has their own part to play in the real-life play that is the world. If we tried to play each other’s it would be chaos.

But so often we either weigh ourselves against other people or against our own excessive sense of duty. People with busy lives in which they juggle careers, family commitments and often other responsibilities sit down to take the weight off their feet for half an hour but get up after 10 minutes because they feel guilty that they’re not getting something done.

People whose health doesn’t allow them to do much expend vast quantities of energy doing things to help others because they feel they have to.

People who have fulfilled a role, whether paid or voluntary, for a time feel guilty when the time comes for them to step back and pass it on to someone else.

Acts of service, whether paid or voluntary, formal or informal, are admirable. But doing all those things – or none of them – and still thinking you’re not good enough is not.

You are enough. Again, YOU ARE ENOUGH.

Whatever your position, whatever your faults and failings, you are enough.

Each of us was created for a purpose. Each of us has our own roles and responsibilities to fulfill. And those will change over time as we move into and out of different seasons of our lives.

Sometimes we might be able to do lots of what we consider to be worthy and worthwhile things. Sometimes it might be all we can do to get out of bed in the morning and make it through the day. Wherever you sit on the spectrum between the two makes no difference: You are enough.

Psalm 134 verse 14 tells us, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made.” God made each one of us for a purpose – our own purpose, not that of our neighbour, our colleague or the person we pass in the street each morning.

And it’s true that none of us will ever, in this life, measure up to the perfection that mankind had before we decided to exercise free will and screw things up. But in one sense that doesn’t matter, because God tells us, in Isaiah chapter 43, verse 25, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”

However much we screw up – whether we’ve actually screwed up or just haven’t lived up to the unattainable arbitrary standards we heap on ourselves like hot coals – if we have accepted God into our lives and called on Jesus to cleanse us of our failings, we need never fear because we will eventually attain perfection in him.

In the meantime, yes, we’ll screw things up from time to time, and being a forgiven child of God won’t make any of us superhuman beings who can achieve all 428 things we put on our daily to-do list and kick ourselves for not getting through. But if we focus on seeking what God wants us to do – the purposes for which he created us – we won’t go far wrong.

God created you to be you because He knew that His world needed you. You are enough.

It’s the time when many people make resolutions to mark the new year. Traditionally people in their droves resolve to get fit or lose weight, joining gyms in their thousands, and many drop out of their new regime before February arrives. Lifestyle changes are popular as January arrives but can be difficult to maintain, often leading to feelings of inadequacy. For some they work but for others they can be a damaging millstone.

If you’re thinking of making a resolution this year and you know you usually lose heart a few weeks in, how about ditching the burdensome and unachievable this year and instead make a simple resolution that might help build you up rather than tear you down? How about resolving to remind yourself, as often as you need reminding, of three simple words? Repeat after me, “I am enough.”

And if you don’t need the reminder, how about resolving to remind someone else from time to time that they, also, are enough?

Let’s remember what God told Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9, which applies equally to everyone who has accepted Him as their saviour, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Wishing you all a blessed and joyful new year.

Sarah Moore is the author of For the Love of Lentil, A journey of longing, loss and abundant grace, which tells the story of her experience of pregnancy and miscarriage. Copies of the book are available here.