Martin Wickens

Do you ever feel like you’re not doing enough?

Do you ever feel like YOU are not enough?

I often feel bad for parents, moms especially who constantly receive the message that they need to be more than a parent, more than just a mom or more than just a dad.

Society says that if you get a degree in child psychology and look after other people’s children then you have a vocation, a career, success. But those who choose to look after their own children are often made to feel like they are not doing enough. They are not enough.

In the ministry, I know many pastors who wrestle with the definition of success. The abundance of conferences and so-called ministry leaders signaling that your church is not thriving because you’re not doing something right leaves many pastors and missionaries feeling like they are not doing enough. They are not enough.

Many Christians struggle to retain knowledge of the Word, they struggle to share their faith, they struggle to maintain a Joel-Osteen-ish grin and stumble through life feeling they are not doing enough. Feeling like they are not enough.

The simple, Bible truth is that because we are in Christ we are enough. And when we do what we do for Christ that makes it enough.

Colossians 2:10 tells we are “complete” in Christ. Once we, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, have become a child of God, we are enough. Nothing can add to nor take away from that.

Who you are in Christ makes you enough. In Ephesians 1 it describes us as being accepted in the beloved, accepted by God.

That makes you enough.

Colossians 2:23-24 goes on to say, “

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.

Whatever you do, if you do it for the Lord, then it is enough.

If you are working at what you know God wants you to do, and you do it for him, it is enough.

I have worked at garden centers, fast-food stores, a sports store, electronics stores, washing windows, a hotel for one miserable day :), grocery stores, in entry-level positions and management.

Each job at each level was enough when I did it for the Lord.

When we do what we are doing for the Lord, it is enough.

Nearly 500 years ago an English Christian put it this way,

Teach me, my God and King,
         In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
         To do it as for Thee.

         Not rudely, as a beast,
         To run into an action;
But still to make Thee prepossest,
         And give it his perfection.

         A man that looks on glass,
         On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
         And then the heav’n espy.

         All may of Thee partake:
         Nothing can be so mean,
Which with his tincture—”for Thy sake”—
         Will not grow bright and clean.

         A servant with this clause
         Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
         Makes that and th’ action fine.

         This is the famous stone
         That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
         Cannot for less be told.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

Aspiration and ambition are good if they are godly in motivation, means, and end.

But so too is contentment in our present condition if that is where God would have us stay.

Do not allow the pressure of society to rob you of peace and joy by telling you that who you are and what you are doing is not enough.

Let your definition of “enough” be God’s definition.