Are you enough?

            Most of my life, I had this notion that in order to be of value, someone else had to find value in me. It wasn’t enough for me to think that I was ok, or even for God to think I was ok- someone else had to affirm I was. I had to have enough friends or a boyfriend or else I was not worth anything. I think part of this thinking stemmed from when I was a child. It seemed I had the words 'pick on me' written on my forehead. One of the things that would happen is sometimes I had to sit alone at lunch. I mean there were other people at the table, but people wouldn’t choose to sit by me. For some reason there were days that someone more popular than me decided if anyone sat by me they could not be friends anymore so they had to choose between being their friend or being my friend. My friends all knew I would always forgive and be friends with them so they had to choose the other friend. After several instances like that, I just started to think that I wasn’t enough. I look back now and see it for what it was, but then it hurt and I just always wanted to be the person people liked and thought was good enough.

            It always stinks when we feel we are not good enough. As many times as I felt this way growing up, I don’t think I ever had it as bad as Leah. We read about Leah in Genesis 29. Evidently Leah, the older sister, was not enough. She must not have been very pretty, maybe didn’t even have much of a personality.  In verses 16-17 it tells us that Leah had no sparkle in her eye- there was nothing to set her apart from anyone else, but Rachel- well Rachel was a hottie. She had a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Can you imagine being Leah growing up and being known as the one who didn’t sparkle? She was definitely not enough compared to her sister Rachel. Then to make matters worse, this new guy Jacob comes in to town and casts one look on Rachel and he was so besotted he agreed to work 7 whole years just to marry her. Things seemed to be going according to plan for Jacob, but when he thought he was marrying his love, the one he loved so much that working 7 years just to be with her was like working a few days, his father-in-law tricked him and gave him Leah. We think of poor Jacob working so long to marry Rachel and how angry he must have been to be tricked, but how do you think Leah felt?      

            Leah spent her whole life knowing she wasn’t as enough as Rachel and here the only way she got her husband was because he was tricked into marrying her. I am sure there was a little relief that he fell for it so she wouldn’t be an old maid, but how embarrassing would that have been? How sad to be in this marriage that you knew he loved your enough- beautiful sister and not you? As time went on we see that God took pity on Leah and it says that He enabled her to have children because she was unloved. One thing I found interesting as I studied was she wanted so bad to find her worth in her husband and for him to love her that she hoped giving him sons would make her enough, that he would finally love her, and she would finally have value. When she had the first three sons, she gave them names that focused on her husband. She named the first one Reuben which meant “The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me.” The second son was Simeon which means “The Lord heard I was unloved and has given me another son” and the third was Levi which means affection and she thought, “Surely this time my husband will feel affection for me, since I have given him 3 sons”. Each time she was hoping beyond hope this would make her enough, but it never did. Finally, when she had her fourth and final son, she named him Judah and that meant, “Now I will praise the Lord.” As long as her eyes were on finding her worth from her husband she was never enough, but finally she realized the Lord was blessing her and she could just praise him.

            How often do we look for people to make us enough? We think that in order to be happy people need to value us or see the best in us. Feeling loved is one of our deepest needs/desires. We want to feel loved and valued- it is only natural. God made us to love and be loved. The problem is only God is capable of perfect love. Only He can choose to love us completely and permanently- warts and all. People are people. They fail us. It just happens. We have bad days, we don’t feel good, we have stress in our lives that we let push us too far and we lash out- often to the people we should show love to the most. When we require anyone- husband, best friend, child to perfectly meet our deepest needs of value and happiness, we are setting them up for failure, because they cannot keep us happy. People cannot be THE Jesus to you. We are to be like Jesus and show people Jesus. We are to lead them to Jesus and make them want a relationship with Jesus, but when we expect people to be THE Jesus (our Lord and our Savior) we are setting them up to fail us and setting ourselves up for disappointment.

            When we expect people to keep us happy and meet our every need we are actually making an idol of them. We may not be bowing down in front of them and say we worship them, but we make an idol of them when we are assigning God’s job to a person and expecting them to be God to us. That does not work. Only God can be perfect. Only God can fill that void in our souls that wants to be enough. Only Jesus died on the cross to make us enough for God. I have spent so much of my life wanting to feel enough and wanting people to affirm that I am. I have always wanted people to see something in me that makes me good enough, and many times I left disappointed. Truth is when I try and get my worth and value from people I will always be left that way- we all will. We have to learn to search God’s Word and see what He thinks about us. Shift our thinking away from what people see in us and say about us, and instead focus it on what God’s Word says. Search out the scriptures that say you are enough and focus on those.

            When you feel like God can’t love you because of your past, even though you have repented, meditate on Romans 8:1. This tells us there is no condemnation for those in Christ. When you feel like you are not good enough, verses like Ephesians 2:10 that say we are God’s masterpiece and Psalm 139 that says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. When we feel we can’t do anything right or aren’t talented enough, think about Philippians 1:6. It tells us, He who began a good work in us will continue that work. Probably the most important one to remember is that 1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us God’s Spirit dwells IN us! God put His very Spirit in you. You are valuable if for no other reason than the fact that when you accepted Christ into your life you received the Spirit of God to dwell in you every day. You can go nowhere that He is not. You are never alone again and you are never ever worthless to Him. You are not the exception to the rule. Sometimes it may feel that you are abandoned and alone, but those are just feelings- the truth is God is in you, always with you, and you are always lovely and beautiful to Him. When people do not recognize your worth, God does. When people fail you, God won’t. When people hurt you and use you, God is waiting to heal you. This week, choose to remember that God is enough for you, and you are enough for God.