There’s a dangerous rhetoric that has invaded the Christian vernacular, and the three small words of this subtle message have had a massive, subversive influence on many young Christians’ understanding of themselves, and by extension a cheapened view of the cross and ultimately of God. What are these words, and how could they be so damaging? It’s the notion memorably set to music in Christina Aguilera’s 2002 hit “beautiful”, captured now in inspirational Instagram quotes superimposed over strong mountains or tall trees.
You Are Enough.
The only problem is, it’s a lie. So the next time a preacher, pastor, public speaker, self-help guru, or friend tells you that “you are enough”, don’t believe them. Don’t buy into the lie that says you should trust in yourself or have confidence in yourself or look for answers within yourself because it simply isn’t true. The reality is that you are human. You are descended from Adam, of the same genetic stuff that caused God to flood the world to rid it of people whose hearts and deeds were only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). That’s the stock you and I come from.
Why It’s Dangerous
Humankind has always sought to be master of our own destiny. From Adam & Eve disobeying God’s good design, to God’s people Israel continually thinking they knew better, to modern Christian self-help books designed to bolster our self-worth thinly veiled in Christianese. But Scripture tells us a different story, and one that we would be wise to pay attention to. Proverbs 3:5 begins “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” If I was to draw a circle that contained all knowledge about everything there is, and ask you to draw a circle inside it to represent your knowledge, you’d probably place a single, barely-visible dot. And yet when we’re facing trials, temptations, trouble that would overwhelm and leave us decimated, we lean on comfortable clichés like “chin up. You are enough” rather than placing our trust in the LORD, whose knowledge fills the entire circle to its perimeter. A biblical perspective on humanity reveals that if you’re going to take your eyes off God and attempt to trust in your own broken, sinful heart—what theologians throughout history have referred to as pulling yourself up by your own boostraps—you’re going to have a bad time.
But There’s Hope
In the middle of the Bible there’s a book called Psalms. In this book, we find authors like David who time after time cry out to God to rescue them from their current circumstances. In these pages we are clearly shown that God is infinitely more capable, more knowing, and more powerful to not only take care of our circumstances, but us as well. The Psalms help to re-orient our hearts away from ourselves and fix our eyes on the One who is enough. About this God David writes in Psalm 103:14-19:
14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
19 The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
God is totally sovereign. He is perfectly just. He speaks and where there was nothing, now there is something. God sees everything visible by the strongest Hubble telescope, and he sees everything that it can’t see, out to the very edge of what exists. He sees everything visible by the strongest electron microscope, and he sees everything it can’t see, down to the most minute level of what is. And he knows it all perfectly, effortlessly, and he learned none of it because he made it. That sounds like the One who is enough.
Listen to A. W. Tozer:
“God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell.”
Infinitely Enough
Have you ever had a time in your life where you’ve gone through a crisis? A job loss. A heart-crushing breakup. An injustice where you feel like you’ll never be heard? God sees your circumstances, and not only is he able to oversee the outcome of those circumstances for your good and his glory, he is also infinitely, lovingly, perfectly enough to care for your every need. So the next time trouble hits, remember David’s words from Psalm 121:
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
John Calvin begins his Institutes by saying that a right understanding of ourselves begins with a right understanding of God. When we know who God is we can properly know who we are, and joyfully depend on Him in every circumstance for our good and his glory. He is powerfully, lovingly, perfectly for us. We are not enough. And that’s actually good news.
