This morning I’m the first one up and I shuffle down the stairs to the kitchen to make coffee. Just before scooping the first black grounds into the filter, I realize John prepared the coffee the night before, so all I have to do is push the button.

Bless that man.

I head to the fridge for the creamer, but it’s lighter than usual and I realize there’s only a small amount of liquid in the bottom of the container. A voice in my mind shouts two words — not enough!

I do love cream in my coffee, but those words come too fast, as if they are waiting on the threshold of my subconscious to declare themselves and reveal a belief I don’t even realize I’m holding on to — there will never be enough.

Do you ever have your theology come up to greet you in the midst of everyday moments like this?

Maybe you’re just waiting for the coffee to brew and thinking about the day to come and then, seemingly out of the blue, a thought comes up you didn’t even know you’ve been carrying.

The kind of theology that counts isn’t the kind you profess, it’s the kind you live. 

Today, those words — there isn’t enough. There will never be enough — they haunt.

But of course, they don’t come out of the clear blue. I know this now.

I’ve actually been feeding that thought for a while now, a fear I’ve kept hidden like a child who finds a rat and wants to keep it in her room.

Rats don’t belong in children’s rooms.

And lies don’t belong in the souls of men and women.

Seeing that empty creamer carton brought that phrase up from the depths.

There isn’t enough time.

There isn’t enough peace.

There isn’t enough success to go around.

And ultimately it comes down to this — I’m not enough.

It’s a jarring thought to have here at the beginning of the year, when all things are supposed to seem possible. But the whispers can grow into a mantra and maybe it sounds something like this.

If you work faster, then you will be more successful.

If you had more time, then you would be a better mom.

 If you were thinner, then you would be enough.

If _____, then you will be ______.

It’s the “if-then” theology, and I’m all too familiar with how it works. It started way back in the beginning, in the garden with a liar who said that one statement, If you eat this fruit, then you will be like God {from Genesis 3:5}.

It says we have to do something in order to be something. And we’ve been buying it ever since, trying to be the one exception to those twisted up rules.

We all have our own if-thens, don’t we?

After pouring my coffee, I spend a little time in my chair by the window, allowing my own statements to float to the surface.

In the silence, another voice moves inviting me to “come in out of the wind” as C.S. Lewis once said, to admit all the if-thens I’m believing and to let Jesus still the voices and be enough on my behalf.

He has redeemed all things, including those false if-then statements. And he replaces them with new ones that depend not on me being enough of something, but on God himself. 

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” {Colossians 3:1-4}

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God replaces the lie of “not enough” with the truth that He is always enough. {Tweet this!}

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