The Christmas Season has caused me for many years to stop and reflect on a word God gives me. A word that has some specific meaning or something God wants me to know about Himself or about what He is doing in my life. Over the years God has given me words like, sacrifice, Light, reveal, renew, rejoice, and surrender. Words that challenge me and move me closer to Jesus. This year again comes a word, a word that reflects what we believe.
It is word that actually has been following me around for a while now. It is a word I find myself speaking in conversations and in my prayers. It is a word I speak to myself on dark days, and one I challenge others with. It is a word that really represents our theology about God.
There is such upheaval in the lives of so many today, in people’s personal lives, in marriages, extended families, in communities, and the world. Pain? Financial hardship? Loss? Trials? Job difficulties? Prodigal children? Aging parents? Health problems? Relational hurts? Jesus is ENOUGH. He is ENOUGH because He is all we need. John 16:33-“I have told you these things, so that IN ME you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Over the years we have experienced many trials, heartaches, and hardships. As God has enabled us to have the faith to continue on the journey and as we have chosen to stand with Him, we have come to find this one thing to be true in all circumstances, all the pain, all the unknown, and all the tears-that Christ is ENOUGH.
In our American existence, we are not privy to the extent of suffering, trials, and persecution others around the world face and those who have walked before us in Christian history have experienced. I try and remember this reality often as I thank God for testing me in another crisis so I can continue to say, Christ is ENOUGH for me. Will I ever experience true persecution? I don’t know, but my prayer is if it happens, with the help of the Spirit, Christ is ENOUGH. If Jesus is not ENOUGH for me in the regular trials of life here in the States, then He will not be ENOUGH overseas or when persecution does come.
There is a final chapter to history and in the meantime we are to point those around us, despite our circumstances, to the only One that matters, Jesus. Who came to earth and walked among us…Immanuel, God with us! That is ENOUGH for me. May Christ’s ENOUGH-NESS be the present you accept and unwrap this Christmas.
