In celebration my coworkers and I went out to
dinner. They each congratulated me and
when told of my nervousness, each said, “You’ll do great,” or, “You’re more
than capable!” or, “That sounds like a lot of work...you’re going to be great
at it!” without hesitation. They said it
earnestly, having genuine confidence in my ability.
There are many demons I still battle, and the one that
seems to cling the closest is the beast of Never Enough. He found me in my childhood and latched on.
I was never enough to my peers, and even my parents reinforced
the belief of inability. Six A’s
disappeared as the spotlight closed in one B and suddenly my hard work
throughout the semester wasn’t enough.
It was never enough. I was never
enough. In retrospect, I believe this is
what led to my addiction to relationships and sex, because even if I wasn’t
good at anything else, I was good at what the porn stars taught me—what I
thought redeemed me from every other failure—and I fed off the only validation
I had. (Today, I believe this to be the
root of heartache for many women.)
This lifestyle, I’m starting to realize, is one of the
reasons I never finished school. I have never been enough, so if life tells
me I will never be enough. Why try? If I know how it ends, continuing to try is
futile. So, I settled in as teller,
and would have happily been one for the next 50 years. Not for lack of ambition or desire, but for lack
of belief that I could ever be anything else.
I am still battling
this demon, which is why I’m terrified of this new path. Never Enough tells me I’m a fool for taking a
risk and leaving the bank. I’ll probably be unemployed within the
month, because they’ll realize I can’t do anything. This noise echoes in my head.
As these thoughts have played out throughout the last couple
of months, the Holy Spirit has been my greatest advocate.
He lays his hand on my soul, shooing Never Enough away. With him around, it doesn’t matter if I’m not
enough. He places hands on mine and
guides me. He takes my thoughts and
steers them. My words? No, those aren’t my words, those are his.
Child, I hear
him say. Pride comes in so many forms. You
place too much on yourself as if you have had control over anything in your
life. As if a different intellect would
have granted you a different path from that chosen by God. As if money would have changed your socials
realms. You are here for nothing you
have had or have not had. You are here
by the very hand of God. Quell the beast
of Never Enough, because it is not about being enough. If it were, all humanity would be
relinquished to pits of fire. You are
here in this moment, in this life, as you are, because God’s hand is over you
and has placed you in a specific way in a specific position in the world—to glorify
Him.
If this alone is
the purpose of your life, and if all things bring glory to the Father, however
could you fail? Even if you were to run
against God, He would be able to use this for His purpose. Look eternally into the folds of life and see
that you are here not because of your capabilities—though you are very capable—but
because God has fashioned this just so in your life. Remove you.
Take the pressure off of yourself.
And place focus instead on He who controls all. He who brought you to it will bring you
through it. We were with you through the
interviews, we’ll be with you through the rest of it.
He brings to mind years ago, me sitting in my living room
with my very first small group. We
talked of dreams. I had none. Afraid to dream from fear of failure, lacking
direction, my life had no goals. I wish
I could find in all my journals what I had written when forced to list gifts
and talents—and when I prayed to God for a career that would bring me joy in
serving Him.
And now I believe I have just that.
The answering of prayers is a terrifying thing. Bryan spoke on Sunday how we pray to God
over our circumstances, but we don’t expect Him to answer us.
We come to Jesus in prayer, we
come out of devotion, but our devotion is devoid of any expectation. We don’t expect Jesus to move, we pray about
our marriage because we should pray about our marriage, but we don’t expect him
to move in our marriage. We pray about
our sick children, but we don’t expect Him to do a miracle. We pray about the season of unemployment, and
the pink slips, and the financial and health crisis we may be going
through. We pray out of devotion, but
there’s no sense of expectation.
Friends, this is a travesty. What
the text teaches us is if God can handle a dead Jesus, he can handle a dead
marriage. If God can handle a dead Jesus,
He can handle a pink slip. If God can
handle a dead Jesus, He can handle a sick child. If God can handle a dead Jesus, He can handle
any situation that comes into your life.
Friends, don’t just go to God out of duty, but when you go to Him expect—expect
Him to work in your life.
More often than not, my focus is on me. What I can do. What I can’t do. It’s no mystery the beast of
The flesh controls what reins it is given and fails
miserably.
When God is given the reins, when expectations rest in
the hands of He Who created the universe, created my very being—when there is a certainty of fulfillment and not just a hope for it, when we trust that our God
means good for us—then we are released from a bondage of slavery to the
expectations we have for ourselves.
That peace that transcends all understanding? That is exactly what that sounds like to me.
