“Enough? Yes, You Are!”

ENOUGH? YES, YOU ARE.

There is almost no bigger lesson to be learnt than this one.

And this is not just some “new-age” bs about self-love and your ability to attract the universe to yourself.

You see, I am now a little over forty years old, with some newly acquired grey hair. In this my old age, I regularly catch myself looking at my three talented children, and longing so very earnestly to tell them everything I know. About life. About the way the world works. About everything.

I imagine that this is the heart of every father. The same way Jesus looked at the disciples at some point and said “There are many things I really want to tell you, but you can’t take them in at this time”.

This lesson, right here, is close to the very top of my “To Teach” list.

And the lesson is simply this: “YOU ARE ENOUGH”.

The exact same way an orange seed is enough to become an orange tree and to bring out orange fruits with many more orange seeds in them, season after season.

The same way an orange seed is enough to need nourishment, sunlight, and water, and good soil to be planted in. The same way an orange seed is enough to know that the problem is not in itself or its nature to not produce the right things.

This truth is getting clearer to me by the day, but I first got a hint of it that day at Daystar Christian Centre when Revd. Sam mentioned in his sermon that the devil’s strategy from day one has always been to try to make you doubt what God has told you. To make you doubt who you are. He asked Eve “You are not a god yet, you know! Try the fruit of that tree, you’ll see what I’m talking about!” We all know the consequences of that one.

By the time Jesus came on the scene, the first thing we’re told Satan tries on him is to get Jesus to question His own identity- “If truly you’re the son of God, you know you’ll be flipping stone burgers right about now”. When that didn’t work, he tried asking Jesus to prove something else. Prove that God won’t let you die throway. Come’on, jump!

And nothing has changed in the devil’s playbook.

It is the devil that makes some people wake up in the morning, and start to imagine that “By now, my mates are driving Land Rovers. What natural order of things must I change, to make Land Rovers out of stones?”

It is the devil, and none other, that suggests to a lady of African descent to buy a bleaching cream in order to become light-skinned. For why?

It is the devil’s suggestion that your African nose needs to become straight and narrow. I won’t even be politically correct with this one.

“I ain’t proving nothing”

Just simply say NO. You don’t even need plenty scriptures for this one. NO. God has made me enough. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. “I am complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power” That is written in Colossians 2:10, by the way.

Complete. Enough. More than enough.

You are enough.

You only need to be planted, and watered; and very soon, you’ll manifest the good things in you.

Psalm 92:13 says those that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. And I especially love that passage in the book of Job, chapter 14 that tells us about the destiny of a tree, especially the one that has gone through really tough times:

“…there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again” (verse 7), and the verse 9 tells us why- “…at the scent of water, it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant”.

Why then should the tree try its best to prove to be a tree?

If you were a tree, wouldn’t you just get yourself planted in God’s house, and drink from the water of His word? And produce fruits the way you know to?

While some may mistake this to mean an endorsement of laziness and an ambitionless cruise down the streams of life, it is just the opposite. It is a call to be you, emphatically, enthusiastically, without trying to prove anything to anyone, YOU. You’re simply being the best YOU there is, without comparing notes with anyone, or listening to any sermon from the deceiver. You only need to grow, and produce your own fruits, in your own season.

You have nothing to prove to anyone. You are just being you.

FRUITFUL.COMPLETE. ENOUGH

Phew, I can cross that one off my “To Teach” list now. Seriously. Enough.

 

• chukwudi adepoju is @adechuks on twitter