Have you ever had a moment when you finally realized God is enough for you?
So often I want God + (fill-in-the-blank), and everything in me screams that God is not enough for me. But this morning I had one of those “aha” moments. God felt so close, and I felt that yes, I could live without my own plans and dreams coming true if I just had Jesus by my side.
Buuut this isn’t the first time I’ve felt that way. Truth is, I’ve had those “aha” moments multiple times, but I always eventually run back to the same idols, feeling that I need more than a relationship with God to have a full life.
Putting God first and loving Him with all your “heart, mind, soul, and strength,” is a daily battle and a choice. When I think I’ve finally found my satisfaction in Christ, I stumble yet again, but I have to turn to Him in spite of myself.
But even through my stumbling baby steps, God is showing me He is enough.
When I am faithless, He picks me up again and pulls me back to Him. When I don’t think I can resist temptation for another second, He puts things in my life to teach me obedience. When I cry out to Him about my struggles, He opens my eyes to help me hate my sin as much as He does. His kindness is the greatest kindness I’ve ever known. The way He brings things to mind when I need them most, the way He directly answers my prayers to help me overcome sin, the way He patiently prepares me for various trials coming, the way He rescues me repeatedly from the vicious cycle of sin… He is enough for me.
I may not always believe it. I may not always feel it. But it’s true.
He’s pulled things from my life to show me that I don’t need the things of this world. He’s walked by me every step of the way. He’s given me that humbling circumstance when my head started getting a little big, but He’s also given me that little thing that makes me smile on a hard day.:)
And oh the joy He gives; not happiness exactly, but a peace that lasts.
My testimony isn’t perfect. In fact, right now I’ve been really inconsistent in my Bible reading. I’ve prioritized the wrong things morning after morning. But even in this, God has grown my hunger for His Word by giving me witnessing opportunities that leave me needing a refresh and pulling various distractions out of my life.
Life with Jesus isn’t boring. It’s full. It’s challenging. Not free of problems and pain by any means but instead of walking through that pain by myself, I have Jesus with me, teaching me through it.
It took me a while to understand how Christ’s “yoke is easy and burden is light,” while at the same time He calls us to such difficult and painful things. I realize now that Jesus makes the difference, walking by us through it all. He is patient with us, loves us, and “empathizes with our weaknesses,” calling us to something greater.
Let’s Talk!
Do you know Jesus as your friend? What gets in the way of you feeling that He is enough for you?
Related: How to Enjoy Prayer
Last Post: Eating, Fitness, and Body Image: How I Finally Found Freedom, pt. 2
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Ahhh, I love it Rachel! I think its a common struggle to put God first in everything. But the focus of a believer’s life MUST be God! A believer’s walk is a lonely and frustrating walk if we try to walk it on our own strength. And I love what you said about finding satisfaction in God! We throw around the term but when we stop to think about it, it really entails much more than simply “being grateful”. I’ll join you in the (lifetime!) quest of finding satisfaction in God! 🤗
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Ahh so well said! 🤗 So glad to have other people with me on this amazing journey:)
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I’ll be praying for you as well, Hadassah! 🙏❤️
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Yeah I can haha
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Thank you so much!
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This is spot-on! I feel like I’m really weak in my faith right now because I haven’t been doing a good time being consistent with my spiritual disciplines, especially prayer. I need to build up my relationship with God more. I have trouble relating to Him the way you described in this post, because I feel like I’ve failed Him too many times. I just feel like my relationship with Him is so fragile right now. Can you please pray for me?
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Heyy girl. I can relate to you 100%. I used to feel very similarly. I wanted to really know and love God but I just didn’t. Something I realized though is that sometimes (in fact, most times) you probably won’t feel like you’re on this “spiritual high.” And that’s OK. And you’re right, we’ve failed God too many times to count. My view of God started to change though when remembering that, I realized that God STILL offers me forgiveness, in spite of myself!! That’s pretty much the definition of faithfulness. So when I feel distant from God or don’t feel like serving/loving Him, I remind myself of how good and faithful he is!! The character and faithfulness of God is what brings back hungry for more of him again and again. The Bible promises if you seek Him, you will find Him and just like with friends, the more time you spend with Him, the more you’ll want to be with Him. And of course I’ll pray for you!! Make sure YOU are asking God to help you too! 🤗 ask God to teach you, to grow your relationship with Him… whenever I cry out to Him about that, He answers and helps me! Sending hugs your way! 🤗
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Thank you so much for your help, Rachel! I really want to be able to love God fully and completely, and I realize I have a lot of spiritual growing to do. Hopefully, once I push myself to be consistent in reading the Bible and talking to Him, it will get better. Thanks again, and sending hugs back!! 🤗
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Aww you’re so welcome:) and don’t forget to rely on God to help you read the Bible and talk to Him in the first place! It takes discipline, but God is also there ready to give you a hunger for Him:) i hope that makes sense haha praying for u!
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I will try! Thank you! ❤ Have a great rest of your weekend!
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Good morning, Rachel! How are you? Thank you for writing. One succinct quote came to mind immediately I finished reading your post. It is by one of my favorite theologians, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, he wrote:
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
Now that’s the summary of all Christ’s teaching. If it’s okay with you (?) I’d love to answer your friend, Alicia Marantettes’, question on consistency and discipline in personal bible study and reading.
First, I admire and appreciate your openness when it comes to your “inconsistency” in Bible reading. We all go through that, at least I use[d] to. I’m happy you’re committed to studying the book of Jude with your mentor in-depth. It’s a great and often neglected book amongst evangelicals.
Second, I’ve been laboring reading through my Bible in 90 days for many years now. I’ve not stopped. I do whole books….finish…repeat. It’s a humbling experience, for sure! As I do this, I always have a specific book which I study in-depth. I don’t want to say you should read yours in 90 days. We can do that and still gain nothing; or even become a legalist of sorts. I do so because I love my Bible; I’m always busy, but my busyness will not keep me from my Bible. A personal initiative I took years back. [In the Bible] That’s God speaking and I strive and pray daily for a delight whenever I open my Bible to study. I need grace daily; every hour I need Thee.
Third, for Alicia. If this coming summer will be busy for you, I’d encourage/challenge you to intentionally be at least studying one book of the Bible each month. You can decide whichever you want; an intentional approach, of course, by the help of the Holy Spirit, I believe your study will be both sweet and humbling.
It’s only in the Bible where we read our true selves; it calls us sinners, and that’s what we are and were before Christ’s redeeming grace; it’s also where, like Rachel, always reminds us in her blog, where we have “an identity” in the Person of Christ Jesus. He is our summum bonum, chief good! Our union with Christ is so deep and wide that we cannot fathom belowhere. That’s the tone of Apostle Paul in the book of Romans.
Lastly, even as we aspire to grow in the word, let us pray that we will not so much look into our “Bible reading” as a thing or duty to earn us a point from God, but to read and study our Bibles so as to know God as He desires us to know Him, as His little children.
Like prayer, we don’t put our confidence in our praying, but in God who we are praying to. I hope these random thoughts will be of help? Again, thank you for writing, Rachel!
– Thompson
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Really good thoughts. The quote is spot on. 😊
Thanks for taking the time to share the encouragement!! I especially appreciate “We can do that and still gain nothing; or even become a legalist of sorts. I do so because I love my Bible; I’m always busy, but my busyness will not keep me from my Bible” and your final reminder that our confidence is in God:) really good thoughts as always!!!
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You’re welcome. In His mercies alone.
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That’s so cool! A mentor would definitely be awesome – how did you do that? I feel nervous about going up to a church lady and asking, I’m sure they would be happy I did, but it’s kind of intimidating 🙂
I recently started the Psalms, and every day I feel like I underline a verse because it’s just so good! Since the beginning of the year I’ve been reading “New Morning Mercies” (Paul David Tripp), and that is amazing as well!
A friend of mine has the book “Shine Bright” (Girl Defined Ministries), and I would like to borrow it for the summer as an easier and simpler study.
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She actually reached out to me after we had a lady’s conference on the topic! It’s very relaxed and we just meet once a month but it’s really refreshing:). It’s totally worth the effort. Ooh yess, that’s so good!
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That’s so awesome! I’m sure it is, you should do a post on mentorship sometime 😉
Yes, I hope it will work out for us!
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I can so relate with inconsistency in Bible reading. It took me years to be able to consistently do it more than 2 weeks.
In March I started bullet journal and created a habit tracker with it – one of those habits is for my devotions. My goal is 5 times a week (generally weekdays). It has helped me INCREDIBLELY, since March and now through April I have been much more consistent and I can see and feel how it changes me and my perspective on things.
My struggle is that soon (mid June maybe a bit in May) I will be working, and that is where I get so inconsistent because I am exhausted in the morning and by the time I go to bed I’m falling over 😂. I’m trying to build consistency while I have nothing going on so that hopefully, as I increase what time I wake up, I can be used to it and keep going.
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These are such good thoughts! Thanks fir taking the time to share!! I actually just started a plan today with a mentor and we’re reading the book of Jude every day for a month to get a really deep study and I’m really excited!
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