Soaking It In - the 31 Day Challenge

On the second night of the Declare Conference, I found myself in my hotel room deep in thought.  Several of the speakers had mentioned a verse or two from Psalm 139 that day.  A couple of the speakers had gone beautifully deep into that piece of Scripture.  It really struck me how that text kept coming at me over and over again.

Here I have these verses that I find beautiful and powerful.  All summer I have had encounters with these words, but not yet memorized them.  Here also I found myself struggling with insecurity and anxiety all summer long in a way that I had not experienced before.  I began to see a connection between those two.

I opened my Bible to Psalm 139, and I read the words there.  So good.  I read them again.  And again.  I probably read that Psalm five times, letting the words wash over me.  Speak to me.  Show me truth.  Heal me of places I didn't even know were broken.

That wasn't enough.  I needed more.   Since I had my iPad handy, I selected a different translation and read it again.  The big ideas were the same, of course, but there were different nuances in the language that opened it up even more.  So I switched the translation again and read it some more.  I continued reading the same Psalm in eight or ten different versions.  Meditating on the words and allowing them to penetrate my soul down to the inmost places.

I still needed more.  So I switched to a version in French.  I haven't read any French since high school, but I just wanted to see how it sounded in that language.  Not a French linguist or scholar by any means, but I remembered enough of it to pick out the main points.  The beauty of God's Word was just as powerful in another language as it was in my own.  I was in awe of the powerful message in those twenty-four verses.


I don't need to be afraid of falling short.  I am enough.  I do not need to worry that someone else is doing something more, better, or different than I am.  I am enough.  God made me to be enough, complete in His design.  I can accept me for who He made me to be.  The areas I see as weakness were put there by design.  I am enough.  Just as I am.

God made me.  He stitched me together with exquisite care, making no mistakes.  He crafted and wove every teeny, tiny little detail of me.  He knew me--and had a plan for me--long before anyone else.  He is with me on all sides, behind and before.  In short, He loves me in a way that only He can.  He is more than enough.  He can handle all my problems, all my insecurities, all my worries, all my anxieties.  He is more than enough.

I came away from that experience feeling refreshed and relieved.  I had a new sense of identity.  That night I laid down some things I had been carrying around for a very long time.  I know who I am and Whose I am.

I am enough.  God is more than enough.