“So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”-Colossians 2:10

Am I enough? The question looms in my mind at a young age.  I relentlessly try to prove I am. I want to be found complete, but I often come up short. It would be years before I understood completeness is not dependent on me but comes from what Christ has done for me. 

Not Enough

Junior high gym class is the worst.  I’m a thin girl with long limbs who appears athletic, but it’s all an illusion. The middle-aged gym teacher selects the two fastest, most athletic kids as captains. “It figures,” I think, as I roll my eyes in disgust. Is it their popularity or their physical strength that enables them to toy with our psyches? I’m not sure how it works, but it doesn’t matter because when the scales are read, I’ll be on the “not enough” side. I won't be chosen first.

I’ll never be enough. 

Not fast enough

Not  strong enough

Not popular enough

One by one the captains choose kids for their teams.  Of course, all the jocks are selected first and then there’s the rest of us misfits.  Should I look at the ground? Should I flash my charming smile in hopes my bubbly personality will win them over, and they will call my name? What's a girl to do?

I know what the pecking order means.  Those chosen first are the brightest, most wonderful. Those who are left last are less than, deficient. Nobody wants us. You might as well print REJECT on our foreheads. 

I wiggle and squirm in the uncomfortableness of the situation hoping and praying I’m not the last one standing. I have compassion for the few not yet chosen. I've always felt that way about the underdog. I hold my breath, and I want the moment to pass. Relief floods my soul as my name is called, and I’m welcomed to the team. For a moment, the sting of rejection is gone as I saunter to the field ready to play.

The phrase I am enough is heralded as the epitome of confidence in our culture. We desperately try to prove it with more hard work, more hustle, or more perfection, but inside we feel incomplete. We post our perfectly curated Instagram moments, yet when the camera is put aside, we feel hollow, lacking, and insignificant. 

What we do or accomplish is not what makes us complete. No good works, bold faith, or enthusiastic proclamation changes our completeness. We are made complete through our union with Christ. We exchange our “not enough” for his wholeness. 

It’s the upside down way of Christ.  When we become less, He becomes more. His strength, peace, wisdom, power, love, and acceptance flows to us and through us.  It’s about what He has done, not what I have accomplished. 

It’s too simple to understand in our “try hard” culture. Why is it we’re always trying to prove we have what it takes?

 It’s in simple surrender we find our wholeness in Christ. 

No hustle

No performance

No perfection

Christ makes us complete. 

Dear Papa, Thank you that I don’t have to be enough because you are enough. Help me understand my completeness is not based on what I do or who I am, but it’s based on who You are. I praise You for being made complete in Christ. Help me step away from performance, perfection and approval because I’m complete in You. Amen.

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