This one is personal.  I’m feeling the question of sufficiency in my heart.  

Do you relate? Are you striving to meet the expectations of yourself or others?  Do you wonder if you are enough? Join me as I process through if we can live up to this status of being enough.  While looking at two ways we fall short, we will also look at the hope available.   

Journaling Questions:

·      Do you struggle with the question “am I enough?”  

·      Does your capacity or failure push you to strive or sin? 

·      Do you feel pressure to do more or be better?  

·      Do you think we can meet up to the standard of being enough?

·      Is there a specific area in your life where God is revealing your lack?  

·      In this pain, are you striving or surrendering? 

·      What would you see different if you saw your lack as a gift that reveals our need for a faithful Savior?

·      Where are you tempted to reach for more than you are able?  

·      Are you able to rest in the truth that we are poor in spirit and have a need, but God meets us in our weakness with His faithfulness?  

If you are interested in more journaling questions sign up here to receive a journaling tool to help explore your next step to trusting God more fully.

See below for a full transcript of the show. 

 [00:00:00] Erin: Hi friends. This is Erin Michele. You have found yourself at steps to trusting. Here at Steps to trusting it’s my goal to meet you where you are in your faith journey and to encourage you to continue to take steps, to trusting the Lord more fully.

[00:00:13] hi everyone. I’m glad you’re here. we are going to be looking at the question. How do we become free of the nagging feeling that tells us we need to measure up and be enough?

[00:00:24] So have you felt it, have you felt the tug that says I need to do better at this? I need people to see what I’m accomplishing.

[00:00:35] I need People’s affirmation that I was a good enough wife, a good enough friend, a good enough mom.

[00:00:41] I needed to not mess this up.

[00:00:44] I want my kids to be able to depend on me. I want to provide everything that they need to set them up for success. I want to be there when my friend needs me.

[00:00:55] I want to go to the track meets. I want to go out for lunch. I want to be at the dinner. I want to be, always in the presence of my family.

[00:01:04] And I can’t do it all. If you’ve been there, if you wish you could do it all. If you have either an internal or external pressure that is asking you to be enough in situations, then this podcast episode is for you.

[00:01:21] I’m going to start us in prayer.

[00:01:22] Dear God, I thank you for the time to think about this nagging question that sits on our hearts.

[00:01:29] Are we enough? Lord, I know we’ve been discussing it over and over. I think

[00:01:34] we are competing against human nature wanting to be enough, and we are competing against a society that says you are enough. And we see that through the filter of the places where we feel like We just can’t, we don’t have the capacity. So Lord, I pray that you give us strength to face these questions, that you would give us clarity as we look at your word and at you that we can find freedom in this area of our lives.

[00:02:05] It’s in Jesus’ name that I pray. Amen.

[00:02:08] I wanted to start with a story.

[00:02:10] I have wanted to be the one who is enough. I have wanted to be the one who is sufficient, the one who looked strong and put together.

[00:02:19] For a lot of years, I thought that I was enough in one specific area of my life. God has really blessed me with great friends and family, which I am thankful for. A lot of relationships were really not that hard for me. There were some challenging relationships that came and went. In and out of my life, but this just happened naturally, like groups changing. It didn’t feel like brokenness or hurtfulness. but I’ve really had to face this question of am I enough over the last couple of years because I stopped being enough in this area of friendship.

[00:02:59] All of a sudden I found myself with a broken friendship that I couldn’t fix. I couldn’t be enough in this area. And I’ll tell you, I tried, I tried to be enough. I tried to make sacrifices. I tried to make changes and take hard steps so that I would be able to measure up. But I found myself lacking Not meeting that standard, not able to do enough, or give enough to be a good friend, to be what my friend needed. When I looked at myself and I looked at my great efforts to change who I was in someone’s eyes. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t sufficient. I wasn’t enough. This is crushing. And heartbreaking and sad and true. And it took for me not being able to meet up to being enough in the area of friendship, in a friend’s eyes. It took that brokenness for me to see that I can’t live up to this status of being enough without God. He’s the one who provides for our needs is the one who gives us good gifts. I hope you never tire of me reminding you from James one 17 that says every good and perfect gift is from above.

[00:04:27] I stopped seeing that my good and perfect gifts are from above and started thinking that my good and perfect gifts were actually things I earned. What if we could actually look at the fact that we can’t be enough, that we can’t measure up, that we do fall short as a gift, My first reaction was not seeing this as a gift. I saw this as hurt and pain, because it’s hard to see yourself not measuring up. It’s hard to look face to face at your weakness. but as I’ve allowed God to be working in me, I’ve started to see my need for him in a new way. I’ve started to see that this could be a gift. That actually coming face to face with the place where I can’t be sufficient was a gift to show me my need for the one who is sufficient.

[00:05:20] And a lot of times. We get confused. When we see our efforts moving us forward, we get lost in thinking that we are enough, that we can handle things by ourselves. And for me, I needed to come to a place where I saw my shortcomings, where I saw that I couldn’t fix this, where I saw my need.

[00:05:43] as I’ve learned this lesson, I’ve seen a couple of ways where we can’t be enough. One of them is our capacity. Now this can show itself, whether it be. Internally or external pressures that we can’t meet up to the expectations because of our capacity, because of the limited time that we have in the limited resources that we have.

[00:06:07] Sometimes there are expectations laid on us that are more than we can handle.

[00:06:12] The other way that I’m learning that we can’t live up to expectations of being enough is not just the standard of our capacity, but because of our brokenness. Some of you may understand what I’m saying because you feel this brokenness. For others. Maybe this is a new concept. Now this is a bigger thing to tackle in a 30 minute ish podcast.

[00:06:35] But if you guys want to talk more about this, reach out to me. If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, you can hit reply to that email and we can chat about it. Or you could reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook at steps to trusting.

[00:06:49] But when we talk about the brokenness of humanity,

[00:06:53] there’s this truth that we fall short. I’m going to take us to Genesis

[00:06:59] and look At what’s known as the fall. But I want to first remind you that in Genesis one, God created and said that it was good.

[00:07:10] In Genesis 1 26. He said, let’s make man in our image in our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created them male and female And it says in verse 31, and God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good and there was evening and there was morning on the sixth day.

[00:07:44] So man and women, mankind are created in God’s image and it was good. they also were told that they should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was right there in the garden, in their midst.

[00:08:00] And when we look at Genesis three, it talks about what the Bible calls the fall.

[00:08:05] And I’ve really come to think of this as the brokenness of God’s good creation.

[00:08:11] You may know this story, but I urge you to stay along.

[00:08:15] The serpent comes and he says to Eve, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

[00:08:23] He plants a seed of doubt in her mind. and in chapter three, verse two, it says, the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.

[00:08:36] Neither should you touch it lest you will die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will surely not die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil.

[00:08:50] Do you hear the temptation? Do you hear how a seed was planted? A lie was planted. telling Eve she could be more than she currently was.

[00:09:03] He pulled at her pride. He tempted her to want to be more, to want to step up and to be like God knowing good and evil.

[00:09:13] As Eve begins to wonder is that what God really said? Or is God holding out on me. She pursues the question she pursues to see if what God said was really true, instead of trusting him, she broke trust with him. In that moment, as Eve is deciding what she will do.

[00:09:36] I see the pride, I see the.

[00:09:39] And I hear this question echoed in our own culture now, in our own society that is saying,

[00:09:47] are you enough? Could you be more, could you do better? Do you want to be high and lifted up?

[00:09:55] Looking at the moment of temptation and.

[00:09:58] I think this is a temptation that we continue in. We continue in wanting to be like God. Wanting to be in control. We let pride in and pride tell us that we have to be more. We have to do better. We have to meet.

[00:10:16] God didn’t expect Eve to know and understand what good and evil was. He didn’t put this pressure or weight on her. She was not like God in this way. And she didn’t need to be, God didn’t need her to be.

[00:10:30] When you look in Genesis, you can see that God was enough. And everything that he had made was good.

[00:10:39] He didn’t expect Eve to know and understand what good and evil was. There was limitations on who Eve was. She was limited by capacity and understanding.

[00:10:51] And that didn’t make it not good. God didn’t put the pressure or weight on her to know what good and evil was. But when Eve reached for that knowledge and reached for that position, Eve stopped trusting that God was her provider. and protecting. She stopped trusting that God gave her everything that she needs.

[00:11:17] She stopped trusting that even in the limited time that she has, and the limited knowledge of good and evil that God was still giving her everything that she needed. It’s not a sin for us to lack capacity.

[00:11:33] I think it becomes sin. When we fall into temptation with our brokeness. we rely on ourselves, we let pride take over. we try to live up to an expectation that is greater than our capacity, and we try to be more than we’re actually able to be. but it takes slowing down and looking at how would trust or faith change my actions. If I trusted that God was faithful, How would I have acted differently in that moment?

[00:11:59] looking at God’s faithfulness takes the pressure off of thinking that we have to be the one to provide for ourselves or others.

[00:12:07] In the last episode. Suzette was pointing out how God had always provided for her sister in the past This past faithfulness of God reminded her to trust in God’s faithfulness for her future.

[00:12:19] And so I want to encourage each of us to be looking at where is God working in us? What are the things that we can look back on and say, this was God working in my life then. And what can we look at now that we might not be noticing where God is working currently?

[00:12:36] And look ahead to the faithfulness of our God being reminded that he is a God who is with us. And he is a God who overcome.

[00:12:46] We are often tempted By the needs thinking we need to step into them. We need to be the one filling them.

[00:12:53] This takes me back to this idea that God acted. So we didn’t have to live by this need to be enough. We need to look at his character of being enough. We said it in some of the episodes, actually, Becky key first said it. When she said

[00:13:13] God did a work. So we don’t have to live by our works, right. God acted so that we don’t have to

[00:13:22] earn the status.

[00:13:25] I want to read you guys another verse. it’s found in Romans 11, starting in verse five. So two at the present time, there is remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

[00:13:43] We fall, we, I fall in to that temptation that tells me I need to live up to being enough. And I do. To be seen that way in the eyes of people. But I do it to be seen that way in the eyes of my God,

[00:14:02] but this is not the expectation of our God. Our God is a gracious merciful God,

[00:14:09] who chooses not by works, but by grace.

[00:14:13] We really live in a tension. We live in this reality that it is by grace. We’ve been saved. that we’ve been chosen by grace by a gracious and faithful God.

[00:14:28] And yet we are called. To works. We are called to live for the one who died in our place, Let’s look at Romans 14, 26. If you read this verse in context, it’s talking about a choice of whether you should eat or not eat meat. That’s been sacrificed to idols, so it could be confusing, but this truth about choices, not over just food is tucked into the end of verse 23. And it says everything that does not come from is sin.

[00:15:01] And when we look again at actions that we take in our own strength, the actions that are not fueled from our faith and trust in God, they are sin, because we’ve broken trust with him, we’ve broken relationship with him. We’ve stopped trusting that he is with us in that moment that he is enough in that moment. and we stop looking to him for the next. But instead we look at ourselves. And I know that this is the case for me, that often when I act in my frustration or I act carelessly it’s because I’m not trusting God. I’m not trusting God to handle the situation I’m not acting in faith and I feel like I need to fix it. Some pressure that falls on us is just the capacity. It’s the capacity where we have to decide where do we put our time? Where do we invest? What are the boundaries that we put down that say, this is something that I can accomplish. And this is something that is too high of an expectation for me. as we decide how to spend our capacity, it can tempt us to not trust that how God made us or what God has given us, whether that be through our, our gifts that he’s given us or the time that he has allowed us. not trusting that he has given us enough.

[00:16:23] we could fall into the sin of pride. That says we have to measure up. We have to be enough. We have to depend on ourselves. we can fall into the trap of living for praise or living for glory. Instead of living for God. We can’t let expectations or the pride of trying to be enough, be what drives us. Our identity is not in our actions, but our identity is found in the grace that we have been given.

[00:16:54] I think like Eve we fall into these places where we want to handle it ourselves even wanted to take control.

[00:17:01] She wanted to step into an authority that wasn’t given to her. Instead of looking at God, she looked at her. she let her selfishness her desire to be more control her instead of acting in trust.

[00:17:17] She didn’t trust him at his word. when we don’t trust and when we. To strive for more than we have time for more than we are able for.

[00:17:27] It shows a lack of trust in our hearts. God was faithful to Eve and God is faithful to us.

[00:17:35] Have you looked for God’s faithfulness in your life. Have you looked for where he’s showing up in your lack? our capacity can often reveal our brokenness because we don’t want to be weak. We don’t want to not measure up. We want to be seen in a certain light.

[00:17:53] Friends, if our weakness, whether it be when we act in our capacity that we just can’t do more than we currently are, or whether it is we act in failure because of the sin in our hearts. Because of the pride in our hearts, we try to do more so will be seen in a certain light.

[00:18:15] If this lack, if this weakness. points us, to look more at ourselves and how we can do more or get better or be stronger. Then we can often find ourselves in a place of sadness and despair because sheer desire or hard work does not change our capacity. nor does It help us be better people, but if this weakness in ourself points us to look at the character of God, to look at how he meets us in our weakness,

[00:18:46] then we can praise God for this weakness.

[00:18:50] This makes me think of the sermon on the Mount and it’s in Matthew five. it’s a sermon where Jesus was speaking to the people and in verse two starts what people often call the beatitudes.

[00:19:02] We’re just going to look at verse three that says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.

[00:19:10] These things are often confusing. We think how is it that the poor in spirit are ones that God is calling blessing. That Jesus is calling blessed.

[00:19:21] Do you see There’s a weakness that’s seen in these places. As I listened to a sermon series on this recently, I was just so reminded. Then when we look at, plus it are the poor in spirit, we look at the truth that we are all poor in spirit, but those who realize they are poor in spirit, those who realize they are weak, those who realize that they need God,

[00:19:46] it’s them. theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It’s not those who live up to the standard of this world and carry it all by themselves. It’s not those that do enough or are good enough or can fulfill all the expectations that people put on them. it’s those that see their capacity and see their sin.

[00:20:09] It’s those that are poor in spirit that turn to the Lord that see their weakness and say, God, I need you. theirs is the kingdom of God.

[00:20:19] Often we don’t think bless it are the people who are poor in spirit. We often look at the people who seem to have it all together, who from the outside look like they have it all look like they can keep their lives together and they have great friendships and relationships. And they’re showing up in all the right places we think bless ed are they.

[00:20:40] And then when we see ourselves behind closed doors and we know that we don’t meet up to those expectations or we get fooled, by pride, and we think we do live up to those expectations and we have no need for God. But those who see their need, those who see their weakness, It says theirs is the kingdom of God. Those who see that they are poor in spirit.

[00:21:03] my question for you then is, are you trying to be enough? Are you trying to have it all together? Are you striving in a way that you hope people will see that you have it all together or are you resting? And the truth that we are poor in spirit, we have a need

[00:21:22] and God meets us in our weakness with his faithfulness. I’m going to close us in prayer. Dear God, thank you. That you are a faithful God, You are faithful and creation. You are faithful. As you uphold the sunrises. You are faithful to the Israelites as you first brought them out of Egypt. And as you again, brought them back into the land that you had promised. And Lord, you have been faithful all along or it help us to see where you are faithful, where you have been acting in our lives, in the same faithful manner.

[00:21:57] Give us eyes to see Lord God, give us strength in our weakness. Help us to stop looking at ourselves and trying to be enough in each moment. and taking it into our own hands, falling into the brokenness. But Lord, instead help us to see our weaknesses and help us to look to you.

[00:22:16] our faithful provider, our faithful protector, Lord, forgive us when we try to trust ourselves and Lord give us wisdom. That in the moment as it comes quickly and we want to react, Lord God, help us to stop and to turn to you. It’s in Jesus name that I pray. Amen.

[00:22:36] , Thanks for joining me today. I hope you join us back here next time, where We’ll be talking with Eileen Hammerman.

[00:22:43] Eileen is also talking about challenges and friendships. She touches on how she felt like friendship just couldn’t be enough.

[00:22:52] It wasn’t living up to the needs that she had in her life.

[00:22:57] and she too realized in that time, how she needed to turn to God where he was the one that could fill that need, that she had.

[00:23:05] If you’ve ever felt a longing or a loneliness. I think this conversation with Eileen would really speak to you. I would love to connect with you. You can find me at www.ErinMichele.net. That’s one L in Michele, You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook at steps to trusting.

[00:23:24] I would love to connect with you in any of those places. come connect with me? if you were encouraged, and you’re not already subscribed, would you consider subscribing leaving me a comment and even sharing it with a friend that would greatly encourage me as well?

[00:23:40] I hope you join us back here next time. But until then, I want to leave you with this reminder from Ephesians two 10 for we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Friends. I am praying for you as you keep o