Not Good Enough
I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. Exodus 4:15
At our gym, we all go through the same workout of the day together. It is usually timed, and we do keep score. This breeds competition, which I very much enjoy. There are those however, who are just too good. Though I push my slow, middle-aged body, I race in vain as I never even come close to rivaling them. I think I have a healthy attitude about the competition, but when I start to feel that I am not good enough, I realize the inappropriate emphasis I am placing on the results. What am I doing? Is this really all about comparison?
At some point, we all wrestle with feelings of inadequacy. There will always be someone who is better than us at something.
Moses, in today’s passage, struggled with feeling not good enough. God commanded him to go back to Egypt to lead his people to freedom, but Moses was terrified: I’m not a good speaker! Please send someone else! God did not give Moses a pep talk about what a wonderful speaker he was. God simply told Moses that He would guide him. Moses’ job was to obey.
This is where many of us find ourselves with God when He asks us to do. I’m not good enough, God! When we tell God, this, we are right. We cannot accomplish His will, on our own. When He asks us to do though, God is asking us to be his vessel. He does not leave us alone to do a thing. When we obey God, we are working with Him and for Him.
There is, paradoxically, a freedom in accepting that we are not good enough. Self-sufficiency is the path to pride and rebellion against God. Accepting our inadequacies and imperfections allows us to rely on God and takes the burden of results off of us. When we obey God and depend on Him, we are not responsible for the outcome. We are only responsible for obeying.
Comparison focuses on ourselves and those around us. Faith focuses on God. Comparison leads to feelings of inadequacy. Faith leads to obedience.
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Today’s Seeds of Spirit is so helpful to me. I’ve been focusing on deepening my understanding of faith – which started with David’s statement “Who is this uncircumcised Phillistene!” to God’s victory over Goliath. I’m looking at how and why my faith grows – requires my active participation and humble obedience. How and why I hinder it – fear, laziness, and selfishness. So today’s lesson is quite timely for me. Thank you!
Thank you. I need to learn to just obey all the time, but it is a continual choice.
From birth until death is man’s search for significance.
“Not good enough”, seemed to be my life mantra growing up and well into adulthood. Unfortunately, I had been looking for my worth in all of the wrong places. Fortunately, after opening my heart to Jesus I found where my true worth came from.
I like how you pointed out that there is a freedom in accepting that we are not good enough. Never would I have thought that accepting this was the answer, but in reality it is. Although we need to be searching for our worth in Him (not in our score on the whiteboard 😉 ). And like you stated, accepting our inadequacies and imperfections allows us to rely on God, leaving him to give us our worth.
“As we grow in faith, we will outgrow our need for physical or temporary assurances and be able to trust God’s Word alone.”
I like that quote but it reminds me that I still need a lot of growth.