I Am Not 'Good Enough'

I am not good enough.
 
This is the fear that follows me through life like a shadow.  The fear that, no matter what I do, I will always somehow be lacking.  I will never quite be enough.

And so I find myself constantly striving, constantly trying to be just a little bit better.  I think if I work just a little bit harder or a little bit longer, if I get up earlier or go to bed later, I will become "good enough".

But whilst I might be able to do this for a short while, I inevitably fail.
 
I am not good enough.

And I realised last weekend that it's true.  I am not "good enough".  But not in a depressing, self-deprecating way.  In a liberating, bigger-than-I-can-imagine way.

Last week at church we looked at the description of God creating humans in the book of Genesis.  We picked out three key characteristics from the description: we are eternal, we are relational, and (for me, the most significant), we are good.
 
       "God created human beings;
       he created them godlike,
       Reflecting God’s nature.
       He created them male and female.
       God blessed them:
       'Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
       Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
       for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.' [...]
       God looked over everything he had made;
       it was so good, so very good!"

       [Genesis 1:27, 31 MSG]


I am good.  Because I am made by a good God who declares me to be good.  Undeniably, irrevocably, unarguably good.
 
I am not "good enough".  I am good.  So very good.

Hand-made

Today, I finished a patchwork cushion cover that I have been working on for at least a year.

 

There was a real sense of pride in my work as I finished and I am really pleased with it and with my achievement, as I wouldn't normally class myself as one of those people who's good at sewing. 

 

When I had finished, I couldn't wait to try it out and see what it looked like: on my bed, on my spare bed, on the sofa etc.  I was excited and I wanted to use it and I wanted to tell other people about it.

 

It's not perfect: some of my stitching isn't quite straight and some of the squares are different sizes or overlap slightly, but it is a labour of love. It is unique and individual and personal and it is something in which I have invested a lot of time and energy.

 

It is hand-made and it is something to be proud of.

 

And as I finished, it made me think (in a very small way), of how God must have felt after He had created each one of us. 

 

The Bible describes us as being designed and personally hand-crafted by God, stitched together by Him:

 

          "For you created my inmost being;
          you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
          I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
          your works are wonderful."

[Psalm 139:13-14 NIV]

 

And at the end of the creation story, the Bible says,

"God looked over everything he had made;

it was so good, so very good!"

[Genesis 1:31 MSG]

 

God looks at you and me and sees us as being so very good.  Not because we behave well, or do as we are told; not because we are without fault or flaw; not because we never make mistakes or because we are perfect.  But because He made us. 

 

We are hand-made by the hands that hold the world.

 

 

Afterthought

One of the things I have loved about camping is being able to see so many stars every night.

There is no light pollution in the middle of the campsite and the sky seems to stretch out endlessly.

I love looking up at the sky and waiting as my eyes adjust and more stars appear one by one by one. Until the whole sky is littered with silver sequins and I realise just how small I am and how huge God is.

And what I can see doesn't even begin to encompass all of God's creation. It doesn't even begin to reflect the hugeness of the Creator.

In the creation story in Genesis, it describes how God created the sun, the moon and the stars:

"Then God said, 'Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.' And that is what happened. God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars."

[Genesis 1:14-16 NLT]

I love the last sentence. Five words. It is almost an afterthought, a post-script. No hype. No exaggeration. No embellishment.

He also made the stars.

God doesn't need our exaggeration or embellishment. We don't have to hype Him up. He is awesome. Without our help.

Sometimes, by exaggerating what God is like in human terms, we actually distort our view of Him. We think we have understood Him better but, really, we have made Him into something we can contain and control and comprehend.

But that is not who or what God is. He is incomprehensible. And we need only look at the stars to be reminded of His greatness and His magnitude.

A Balanced Life

I am sure we are all familiar with the phrase "a work/life balance". 

However, I would venture to say that, whilst we are familiar with it in principle, it is rarely a reality in our lives.  Instead, for most of us, our lives are dominated by our work.  Far from the '9-5' cliché, we find our work encroaching on our evenings and our weekends.  With a growing trend in flexi-hours and working from home, we are now unable to easily separate these two aspects of our lives.

Sometimes I feel that my attempts at a work/life balance are rather like a fat kid on a see-saw.  They are unfairly weighted.  My life is dominated by my work, and my attempts at a 'life' are like the weasly kid suspended in the air at the other end of the see-saw.

This is something with which I have wrestled and struggled for a long while.

I felt that work was something to get through and something to endure until the weekend.  It was separated from the rest of my life and was of no importance to God.

But recently I feel that God has been showing me how important my work is, and how important work is to all of our lives.

God created Adam and Eve to work in the Garden of Eden.  Work wasn't a punishment, but a blessing:

      "God created human beings;

      he created them godlike,

      Reflecting God's nature.

      He created them male and female.

      God blessed them: 

      'Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!

      Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,

      for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.'"

     

      [Genesis 1:27-28 MSG]

God cares about my work along with all other aspects of my life: my friendships, my relationships, what book I'm reading, what film I'm watching, what I'm enjoying, what I'm struggling with. 

He cares about it all, and He wants us to acknowledge Him in it all.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."

[Colossians 3:23 NIV]

Rather than striving for a work/life balance, I am aiming for a balanced life.   A life balanced with work and relaxing and resting and playing and studying and relationship and solitude and eating and fasting and praying and thinking and indulging and refraining and talking and listening ...

A balanced life.