God is Enough

Recently at church we had a guest speaker, she spoke about the word ENOUGH. It is interesting how many different ways this word can be used. We can use it as a discipline in our life, enough sleep, enough cookies, enough television.

We can use it as a prayer Lord I have had ENOUGH. BUT I believe the most important way that we can use this word is in the knowledge that God IS ENOUGH!
God spent 2 weeks teaching me about the concept of enough; one of the verses he used was 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NLT.

“8. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9. Each time he said “MY GRACIOUS FAVOR IS ALL YOU NEED. MY POWER WORKS BEST IN YOUR WEAKNESS.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses. So that the power of Christ may work through me. 10. Since I know it is all for Christ's good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I was also studying James 1: 2-9 NLT at this time.
“2. Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. 3. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a change to grow. 4. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.
5. If you need wisdom – if you want to know what God wants you to do – ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking. 6. But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to answer, for a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7. People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8. They can’t make up their minds. The waver back and forth in everything they do.”

There are some verses, like the 2Cor 12:8 - 10 that bluntly state something, but in my walk, I find an enormous difference between knowing the words in my mind, and truly believing them in my heart. For the first week of my walk in this verse that is just what it was, it was knowledge in my mind, it was of course, very encouraging, and I was able to refer to this truth when facing small little tests or inconveniences. I ended up spending one evening in the emergency in severe pain, I could hear this verse in my mind, but I didn't truly believe it in my heart.

In the second week of my walk this verse became so much more, it became the very air that I breathed and I clung onto it for dear life.

Here is a little background information. Over the last few months I have been removing things from my life that I believed were keeping me at a distance from God, things like music, movies, parties, foods and overtraining that caused my body to be in a state of constant agony (and not the good kind of agony that comes from a hard work out) and most significantly relationships. Not that I believe people are bad, but I do believe that the state of mind that I was in when I was in certain atmospheres caused my thoughts to be far from things that would allow personal growth to occur in my relationship with God. I began to spend every morning and evening in the Word of God, just learning about him without any outside influence, it was actually incredibly peaceful, I was falling in love with Jesus all over again. I felt God drawing closer to me and I to him.

Occasionally over those few months I would have dreams that I would try to run but my legs were so heavy I just could not, as I rid my life of ungodly things the dreams changed. I wish I could say they changed into lovely angelic dreams, but that certainly was not the case, in fact it was quite the opposite. I began to have nightmares, this time I was running full speed ahead but I was running from people who were trying to harm me, trying to lure me into their ways and I just ran. I remember one of the dreams that was really interesting, it was dark and I was running as fast as I could up a big hill, I knew that I had to do whatever I could to get out of there, coming down the hill at me were all sorts of animals, I specifically remember the hyenas and the snakes. The coolest part about it was that nothing could touch me, I ran through all of these dangerous things coming at me but I was completely unharmed. All of the nightmares presented themselves the same sort of way, I was running from something, there was danger everywhere, yet I was unharmed.

I will only give vague details of a trial I faced because I don’t believe more is necessary. While I was out one night a situation presented itself to me and immediately I knew that I had get away from it anyway that I could, and I did of course, unharmed physically, emotionally is another story. I believe that one of my “nightmares” specifically warned me about that situation. A few days later I received a message regarding the situation; let’s just say that it was way beyond my capacity to emotionally handle the insults that were thrown against me. After the initial shock, only by God’s grace I was able to take a moment to look at the situation logically and it was in that moment I knew I could either try to handle the situation on my own and once again become self destructive and go back down the path I just came from, or I could completely surrender it to God. I decided to surrender it to God, I had no idea what that looked like, but I decided to just pray and trust in Him. As I opened up my Bible I ended up on the page with 2Cor 12: 8 – 10. The words struck me like a bat to the head as I sat and sobbed.

“8. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9. Each time he said “MY GRACIOUS FAVOR IS ALL YOU NEED. MY POWER WORKS BEST IN YOUR WEAKNESS.” … …10.Since I know it is all for Christ's good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Looking back on the situation I wondered “How did I surrender it to God?” Then I realized I didn’t do anything but in a moment I decided with all my heart, that I would trust Him. That is it! It is so simple, yet we as humans, me included, have such a hard time with it! I know with out a doubt if I did not decide to trust God to take care of the situation, I would not have had such incredible healing from it, in fact I have hardly had any pain at all. God said I AM ENOUGH. His GRACE is so AMAZING! He used that situation to show me more of his love, more of his character, and to guide me to make some dramatic life changes, that I know are leading to a path that will fill me with joy and glorify Him!

Funnily enough, this incident also inspired the beginning of my blog.