This week I re-visited a book I first picked up over 15 years ago entitled, These Strange Ashes by Elizabeth Elliot. The book had tenderly ministered to me when I needed a reminder of God’s character, of His perfect sovereignty always at work. Today it is hard not to forget the girl I was then, ages ago and yet not so many ages ago. I was young, in love, and losing love. I had finished the task of sending back my engagement ring and with it what felt like my entire heart. To be sure, I was jilted beyond broken. In more ways than one I was a girl who had been told too many times that “she was not enough”. The weight of not being “enough” was crushing.
And the battle continues.
Every day we wake up, look into a mirror, and struggle to not see ourselves as less-than. We work hard at working hard, ending many of our days with unmet expectations of what we think we should be more of. You and I, we are masters of comparison and magicians of insecurity. That feeling of inadequacy crushes the heart and soul out of our sails. It hinders our step, quiets our voice, and stunts all that God intended and designed us to be. In the pursuit of “enough” we lose sight of who is “enough”.
We are not alone in the struggle.
Remember Moses, the man who with God parted waters and led a stiff necked people out of captivity? He knew all too well the struggle of inadequacy. Read Exodus 3 and see for yourself. From the very moment God called Moses out to lead Moses wrestled. Moses battled fear and what-ifs. He doubted his ability and the ability of others to see God through him and continued to struggle in spite of God’s promised presence and tangible provisions. Moses saw in himself nothing worthy of the immeasurable task God was calling and equipping him to and so he measured himself “not enough”.
“But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” ~Exodus 3:11
Like Moses, we are not the answer to “enough”.
To be frank, if I can say something that is socially unacceptable in a culture that idolizes self sufficiency, WE ARE NOT ENOUGH. Let me shout that again, WE ARE NOT ENOUGH. Moses, to the deep part of all he knew himself to be, knew this well. We, in and of ourselves, are not enough. But God is. God’s answer, patiently repeated to Moses, can be encapsulated in the very name of God himself. Two words, two every things, two final exclamation points to anything we could ever wrestle and struggle with. Our strength in weakness. “I AM”.
“Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the poeple of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” Exodus 3:13-14
“I AM” is everything.
Two words to define an incomprehensibly BIG God. Two words to point to God’s “self-existence and eternality” as John MacArthur explains. Two words God himself chose in answer of who he is, two words that change everything. “I Am Who I Am.”
In all the doubts Moses grappled with, God’s answer was in effect Himself. And so it is with us.
When we, as parents, are not enough, God answers, “I Am Who I Am”.
When in work we are not enough, God answers, “I Am Who I Am”.
When our strength is not enough, God answers, “I Am Who I Am”.
Do you see the repeating theme? Everything we lack, everything we can never be is found in everything God IS. He doesn’t just supply what is needed, God IS what is needed. I want to give up the battle of trying to be enough. Why? Because without God in the equation, it’s a battle that I will lose over and over again. It’s exhausting, defeating, crushing. Trying to find enough from within myself does not give me the hope to live beyond myself, and that’s what I need.
I need God, a hope that anchors me higher and firmer. I need to look up and outside of myself to God, a hope that is firm and strong. Foundational. I myself, without God, am sinking sand. I am not enough. But with God, through God, I HAVE enough, more than enough, for everything and anything. I Am Who I Am is what is enough.
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