By Chris WittsMonday 11 Dec 2023Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
David Bowie once admitted to feeling utterly inadequate as a musician when he hid behind his writing and performing. That might be a surprise to many of his fans, but his words seem to be genuine. Did he really feel negative about himself?
He isn’t the only one
I’ve read about award winning actor Tom Hanks, who once said, “How did I get here? And when am I going to discover that I am, in fact a fraud? And when are people going to take everything away from me?” And then there is Michelle Obama, the former first lady who wrote the best-selling book ‘Becoming’. She admits to suffering what’s called imposter syndrome. She has accomplished a lot of achievements in her life and asks herself, “Am I good enough?” Over time, she learned to answer, “Yes, in fact, I am good enough.”
I read the quote, ‘Don’t believe everything you think’, and that rings true with me. Your thoughts can often be misleading, false, leading you in the wrong direction, and you can end up thinking I’m of no value and really, am I worthwhile? What have I got to offer others? But who says that’s correct? Not feeling good enough is exhausting. Before you know it, you’ll end up distancing yourself from what makes you feel whole and complete even further. And I get the feeling a lot of people do this.
The reality is that no one’s perfect
We all have flaws in securities. We often don’t want others to see them. And we might wear a mask to hide the real person and say, I’m not worthy. I’m a failure. I’m worthless. I’m not good enough. In the United States, over 7000 people search for ‘not good enough’ on Google once a month and in the same time frame, 1400 people search for ‘Why am I not good enough?’
And if this resonates with you, you’re not alone. When you feel you’re not good enough, you might push yourself harder than you really have to. You think there must be something wrong because you don’t have what everyone else has got, and we put so much pressure on ourselves to be successful – for example in high school. We put that pressure on ourselves to be popular, to win, to be smart and then in adulthood, we put pressure on ourselves to be well rounded, to be original.
Often these negative beliefs are developed through childhood, based on what we see, hear and feel as children. It can also occur based on life’s experience. For example, if a child witnessed a parent leaving when they were little or was abandoned, they could develop this negative belief that people who love them will somehow leave them. Today we’re bombarded with images and messages and comparisons that convince us of this idea. We are not enough. We need to become more thinner, smarter, richer. We might push this aside. Perhaps the seed of doubt grows, and we feel a sense of discomfort.
I am making a guess to say that you, too, have struggled with the feelings of inferiority and security. I know I have. If we don’t have the right job or the right lifestyle by a certain age or time frame, we assume we’re not good enough. So what are we supposed to do by allowing God through the Bible to make sense to us and to speak sense no matter our past, no matter what other people say about us or our own insecurities. We can find hope in the fact that God created us and loved us more than we can comprehend.
For he has a complete and perfect love when we’re not good enough for the world or ourselves. We are treasured by Jesus Christ and we are more than enough for him. Isn’t this a marvellous thought? It can help us feel valued. It allows our potential to flourish rather than standing back, feeling a sense of shame and failure. God sees us as worthy, and he was willing to give the life of his Son for us. That’s what we need to remember. Whatever positive characteristic we feel, we’re not. God is. He is the God who fills in the gaps.
When we say I’m not strong enough, God says I am. We might say I’m not smart enough, but God says I am. And once we let go of the lies that we’re not enough, we can take hold of the truth that we are more than enough because of Jesus’ presence and power in us. We’ll be set free from this paralysing insecurity and on our way to experiencing courageous confidence, to do everything that he calls us to do.
Let’s Pray
Heavenly Father, so many times I feel like I’m not good enough or wise enough – just not enough. Help me, Lord, to stop focusing on myself and my perceived inadequacies and to start focusing on your all-sufficient supply in Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.