Am I worthy? Am I good enough?

By joannsblog2016 on August 12, 2021 • ( 0 )

Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?
Matthew 6:26

Questions that swarm around in most of our heads like little bees pollinating the fresh spring blooms.

What does that actually mean to us? Are we not worthy of being loved? Loved by God? Loved by another? Are we not good enough for the promotion? For the task God has placed in front of us?

The other day, me and my beautiful daughters were in the nail salon. This young man came in, with permission, and politely began to profess his faith, giving credit to God and the organization that gave him a second chance and told him he was good enough and he was worthy. With a sincere depth of excitement he shared a snapshot of his drug addictions and how Christ saved him from a life that was headed for destruction. Although he was seeking donations for the mission of the church that had welcomed him into a life of death and resurrection, he was first interested in sharing information for others to receive the same message he had. A message that said “I am worthy” and despite my choices “I am good enough” to receive a life of love, joy and charity – a life centered on Christ. I smiled as I listened to the joy in his voice. His excitement was radiating as he asked me if I had experienced salvation.

I know from my own personal family experiences what an addiction can do to a person. How it eats away at the person and becomes that person. I also know how difficult it is to understand when you have not walked the path of addiction and that misunderstanding drives judgements, and harsh responses.

As the young man approached an elderly lady near us, he was met with a coldness. The lady never acknowledged his presence and her gestures were such that she knew he was there yet he wasn’t. She straightened up in her chair, drawing closer to the lady doing her nails. Without discouragement, the young man continued on his mission of sharing his salvation story, when God snatched him from a place of addiction and dropped him into a place of love and hope.

As I reflected more on this moment I encountered, I realized the lady’s gesture expressed that he wasn’t worthy or good enough for just one minute of her time.

Questions and emotions welled up within me of my own feelings of unworthiness and not being good enough. Feelings I wrestled with since my childhood.

How often does someone’s words or gesture impact us, telling us we’re not worthy or enough? How often does our own words or gestures impact another in the same way? And how many missed opportunities of sharing what God has invited the faithful to do through a calling or a mission He prepared them for resulted from this feeling of unworthiness and not good enough?

I love Matthew 6:26. It reminds me of two things:

God is trustworthy.
I am worthy.

This trust and worthiness does require some action from me.

Surrender and Discipleship

In Matthew 10:38, Christ tells us very clearly that “whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” This is exactly what I witnessed in this young man. He was bearing his cross and following Jesus, proclaiming the Good News through his salvation story, spreading the word and raising money to help others find the same grace he found.

Today, I invite you to look within. Ask yourself are you worthy? Are you enough? If the answer is no. Sit there for a moment and recall the first time those feelings entered within. Was it something someone said or was it something someone did? Then close your eyes and imagine you are sitting face to face with God. What is He saying to you? After you have sat with God for a moment, read Psalm 139:13-14. Aloud, tell yourself “I am wonderfully made.”

You formed my inmost being. You knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works! My very self you know.
Psalm 139:13-14

Friends, we are each worthy and enough to be children of God, to be filled with a life that is full of joy and love that can only come from Him. It only takes surrendering all that is of this world, the negative comments we tell ourselves or others say, our struggles, our brokenness and any other things that speak to our hearts that we are not worthy and not enough. Just pick up the cross and follow Him. You are more valuable than the birds of the sky because you were wonderfully made. Knit personally by Him.