The Unexpected Life

Last weekend, I participated in an IF:Local women’s conference at my church. We enjoyed some time together and watched several of the sessions from IF:2024 that took place in February. The first session of the day was a message from Christine Caine, someone I’ve heard about for years but never heard speak until now.

It was full of so much good stuff, and definitely made me want to look into more of her content. There was one part in particular that stood out to me though.

Christine was talking about the story when Jesus feeds a huge crowd with five loaves of bread and two fish in Matthew 14. If you’ve never heard that story (or maybe it’s just been awhile), here’s a quick recap:

Jesus is teaching a group of around 5000 men. The total size of the crowd was probably around 20,000 once you include the women and children. Now, Jesus had been teaching for a long time and the disciples come to him saying the crowd is growing hungry. They suggest sending the crowd into the cities to find something to eat. Jesus, being Jesus, tells the disciples to feed everyone themselves. The disciples point out how ridiculous and costly this would be. And Jesus, being Jesus, sends them into the crowd to find out what they have to work with.

The disciples come back with five loaves of bread and two fish and point out how little food that is in light of the 20,000+ people looking for something to eat. Jesus, being Jesus, blesses the food and then gets the disciples to start handing it out to the crowd. They do, and the food just keeps being enough. In fact, once everyone has finished eating, the disciples gather up 12 baskets of leftover scraps.

This story is one I’ve heard approximately 1000 times. From the good ol’ flannelgraph in Sunday School to women’s Bible studies to Sunday morning sermons, this story provides leaders many viewpoints and opportunities to teach about the character of Jesus. But Christine pointed out something I’ve never really paid much attention to before, and haven’t been able to stop thinking about since. Since I can’t do her speaking justice, I’ll lay it out in my own words how I understood it.

Jesus sent the disciples into the crowd to see what they could on their own to solve the problem before them. They did what they could, and came back with what can only be defined as comically not enough. Five loaves and two fish was decidedly, unequivocally, hilariously lacking to feed 20,000 people. They would never be able to take any credit for what God was about to do because it was painfully obvious that what they could do was definitely not enough.

And then Jesus blessed the not enough that the disciples brought to him, and gave it back to them to hand out to the crowd. They held the not enough in their own hands, gave it to Jesus to bless, and then held it in their own hands again while they participated in a miracle.

Christine didn’t say this, but the thought I had was “Thank God I am not enough!”

I have been writing more these days, and one of the consistent feelings I have is that I am not enough. That I don’t have a big enough platform, that I don’t have enough education for people to listen to me, that am not doing enough to build a following/get my content out to people.

This feeling of “not enough” is compounded in my parenting. There are many times throughout every day when I feel like I am just not enough for my children. Not patient enough. Not creative enough. Not kind enough. Not signing them up for enough activities. Not inviting friends over enough. Not enough space in my arms when both my girls are crying and I can only comfort one at a time.

And then it turns to my other relationships. I’m not a present enough friend. Not calling grandparents enough. Not enough left of me to be a good wife.

It has been a bit disheartening at times. But this message felt like a gift of freedom.

I can continue to walk in obedience, doing the next thing I think God is asking me to do. And I can know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not enough in human standards. I actually can’t do it all perfectly. Thank God I am not enough, because now I get to see what only God can do.

Part of the women’s conference was an opportunity to make bracelets, and I chose to write the “ENOUGH” on mine (I actually wanted to write “NOT ENOUGH” but thought without proper context, people who saw it might think I had serious self-esteem issues). This bracelet is a reminder to me that I don’t need to worry about being enough. God will take care of the enough. I just have to bring what I do have and faithfully do what He asks me to with it.