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I hope I don’t embarrass myself by saying this, but I just have to be open about my thoughts. Even as a child, I remember the distinct feeling of not being good enough. I felt like I would constantly “mess things up”, or ruin something that would have been better if I had just not been there. As I became a teenager, I thought if I had of been good enough certain people in my life would not have left me. Even as a wife, I consistently thought about how I was just not good enough. Many times, it didn’t stop there. I actually hated myself sometimes. I knew I had good qualities, but I just never could seem to “make it”. What “it” was I wasn’t sure, but I knew I was not there!
I don’t know when it happened. It must have happened an ounce at a time until my brain was completely overcome with better thinking, but slowly God helped me understand who I was in Him. I prayed and prayed over the years that He would reveal Himself as a Father to me since I didn’t know what a father was. I believe that as I prayed this for years, He layer by layer opened my eyes to how he saw me. I refused to tell myself that I hated myself or that the world would be better without me. I accepted God’s fatherly love for me and somehow I came to finally see myself the way He sees me.
He showed me that I could never be good enough to stand in His presence. No one could. He is Holy. I am not. I can never measure up… and that’s okay. That’s why I need Jesus and that’s why we all need Jesus. Because Jesus is good enough. As I cling to Him, I’m wrapped up in His good enough!
He also showed me that I could never be bad enough. If I could be good enough to make it into heaven on my own then I could be bad enough to be hopeless. But that’s not the case. No matter what my failures have been, to say I am too bad to have a relationship with God is to say that Jesus is not strong enough to save me. I cannot be good enough and I cannot be too bad… I just need Jesus!
Ezekiel 33:12a
“Now, son of man, say to your people: The righteousness of the righteous person will not save him on the day of his transgression; neither will the wickedness of the wicked person cause him to stumble on the day he turns from his wickedness..”
I had felt like giving up at one point because I felt like I couldn’t get it all right as a Christian, but I just loved Jesus so much that I couldn’t imagine not living my life for Him as best as I knew how. Through tears I told Him that He’s stuck with me. Even if I’m the worst player on the team and I have to warm the bench for every game, I’m on His team for good. He spoke to my heart and said, Are you more faithful to Me than I am to You? I realized that in my brokenness I still loved Him and wanted Him and if I as a sinful human could hold on to Him like that how much more could the perfect love of my Heavenly Father hold onto me?
I had a dream last night of two jars like the one pictured above. One jar had a few broken holes in it like this one. The other one had more and larger holes. What I saw is that we are those jars. Some of us have fewer, smaller holes and some us of have big, broken holes. No matter what, we are not going to be good enough to hold water! We all need Jesus to come and fill in our gaps. We are not good enough even with a few holes and we are not too bad even with a lot. We are very useable, though, once we allow Jesus to come in and fill every broken part of us.
Father God, thank You so much for Your unfailing love toward me. You love the good You have placed in me and You are here to heal my brokenness. You are the only reason I am ever good enough, and I walk securely in that. Thank You for filling me with Your Spirit and loving me enough to use me for Your glory.
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