By Jean Wilund
Mindless Instagram scrolling turned up an image of flowers framing a bold proclamation:
Daughter, You Are Enough!
I paused over the image, but not because I wanted to heart, bookmark, or repost it. But because I understood the universal desire to be enough.
Enough for family and work. Enough for ourselves and the world. Enough for God.
Little did I know as I scrolled on to other images that God was about to make this message the theme of my week.
Warning: People are About to Get Hurt
They say famous people die in 3’s. Apparently, I hurt people and discourage myself in 3’s.
Discouragement #1
While having a conversation with friends, I offered helpful input. (Insert smiling emoji here.) Except it turns out, like a burst of dandelion seeds, I’d actually sowed discouragement.
There I was, thinking I’d been a blessing. But like dandelions rooted in a well-manicured lawn, my comments were not welcomed yellow buttons of beauty. They were weed seeds blowing through tender hearts.
Once I saw the pain I’d caused, my own heart broke. And my pity party commenced:
Daughter, you are NOT enough.
The next day, while my glaring imperfections were still stinging my heart, my phone rang.
Discouragement #2
I answered it only to discover I’d been blowing discouragement onto yet another friend.
How do I even have friends?
As she shared her heart and the pain I’d poured into it, my imperfections shouted:
Daughter, you are NOT enough.
By the time we hung up, all was well again. And then my phone dinged.
Discouragement #3
As soon as I hung up, multiple calendar alerts pinged my phone to remind me of an important meeting—a meeting that had started 17 minutes ago.
Discouragement flirted with despair as I rushed to join the group.
Everyone shared great ideas, but I sat with my mouth sealed shut. I just knew if I opened my mouth, all I’d do was blow more unwanted seeds of destruction because…
Daughter, you are NOT enough.
After the meeting, I felt hopelessly hopeless. So I reached for my Bible.
Hope for the Hopeless
I flipped past the story of Adam and Eve. They blew it for all of us. (Genesis 3:1-24)
Then there was David with Bathsheba. He blew it royally. (2 Samuel 11:1-26)
And what about the great disciple Peter? He denied Jesus. Three times. (Luke 22:54-62)
Turns out, we’re all hopelessly hopeless. None of us can ever be all we need to be.
Created in the Image of God
We’re all created in the image of God, therefore we should all be treated with the respect God demands of His creation.
Study the life of Christ in the Gospels to see how He treated others.
Jesus treasured women and treated them with grace and kindness, but He never overlooked sin. He never winked at it.
He called the Jewish leaders to know and correctly interpret Scripture. He didn’t hesitate to call out their hypocrisy.
Jesus treated the downcast and weary with tenderness and care.
And He called all people to believe in and follow Him. His apostles called us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling in Christ. (Ephesians 4:1-3)
In our own strength, we’ll stumble and fall. But in Christ, we can be faithful and fruitful without worrying about the results. God is in control, not us.
Christ is Enough!
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5
Because of our relentless sin-nature, our best efforts are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) going out into a world of people whose best efforts are no better. It can be so exhausting.
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:24-25
Thanks be to God, indeed. We can rest in this great Truth:
Daughter, you are not enough, but Christ is!
He never fails, and He reigns supreme over all.
Whenever your best efforts cause unintended wreckage, may this Truth give you peace.
And may it give you courage when your worst efforts wreak the destruction you intended and then haunt you for it. (Or is that just me? Sometimes I let my temper shoot off words or actions like fatal bullets.)
Even when I’m certain my words have been lovely bouquets of blessings, I sometimes find out I’d actually blessed them with poison ivy. Has this happened to you, too?
If only we could know the consequences of our every action from the start, maybe we’d have the wisdom and determination to do better. But I doubt it.
We can’t see the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), but Christ sees it all, and He reigns supreme over all (Psalm 93:1).
We will never be enough, and this is why Jesus came—to seek and save the lost.
We didn’t seek Him. He sought us.
We didn’t find Him. He found us.
Jesus did it all for the glory of God.
And this is why I’m asking well-meaning Christians to please stop telling my daughter she is enough.
Our Daughters Need to Know They’re Not Enough
If we tell our daughters they’re enough, we lay a crushing load on them they can’t carry. And worse, it leads them to trust in themselves rather than trusting in the only One who is enough.
I want my daughters to know they’re not enough so they’ll run to Jesus and surrender to Him, the One who is everything they need. The One who will never fail them.
What Satan (and our own human frailties) mean for evil, God means for good. (Genesis 50:20)
No matter how much we fail or how many times we disappoint others (or ourselves), Jesus intends for all of it to serve His good purposes. We can trust Him with it.
Who is there who speaks and it happens, unless the Lord has ordained it?
Lamentations 3:37 (HCSB)
May we all trust and believe that no matter what we’ve done or said, and no matter what has been done or said to us, these Truths never change:
The Lord sees the end from the beginning.
He reigns supreme over all.
He is enough!
You are not enough. But thanks be to God, Jesus is! If you believe in Him, He is yours forever, and You are His.
If you have not yet believed in and surrendered to Jesus (Romans 10:9-10), do it today because you really aren’t enough. But Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). He alone is enough.
