Not Enough

It’s taken me a while in life to come to realize that I can choose my friends.

I can choose who I let in, and who I don’t let in. I may not be able to choose how people talk to me, but I can choose how much or how often certain people talk to me.

It’s crazy, how much time I’ve spent with people who have treated me poorly, who have lacked respect for me, and who could careless about anyone else but themselves.

Though I honestly don’t think that they were the biggest problem then, I think the biggest problem was discovered when I asked the question,

Why do I allow these people to be in my life?

I think the answer to that is:

I didn’t feel as if I deserved anything better.

I didn’t feel that I deserved anything at all really.

I mean that’s what many have been taught, from Sunday school all the way up to now, that we’re depraved, meaning we’re worthless, and because we’re worthless, we deserve punishment and death, and we’re lucky to even have what we have now.

The church isn’t even the leader in this, so if you didn’t grow up in church, you still have been told your entire life, by media, commercials, advertisements, and television shows that you’re not enough, and because you’re not enough you need to buy, watch, read, or download this or that so you then can be enough…

… That is, until they have something new to sell you next week.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” – Tim Keller

So we allow abuse. We put up with harassment. We subject ourselves to control and manipulation… We allow people to laugh at our dreams, to speak poorly and discouragingly to us, and to make “jokes” that we pretend to laugh and smile at.

Eventually the danger is that we then become what we hate. We begin to guard and protect ourselves. We begin to become and act as if we’re someone we’re not, in hope that the people we don’t even like, will then like “us.”

Simply put – We buy into the lie, and therefore live a lie. Convincing others to like the person we’re pretending to be. Forgetting who we truly are. Losing touch with reality, and our true inner selves.

Unfortunately it took me until my twenties to get this. But it’s simple, like Donald Miller says so well:

“If you want to be loved, be yourself with people who are kind and trustworthy.” – Donald Miller

It’s crazy how tough it is to be yourself. It’s even crazier, in my opinion, how tough it is to find many others who will love you and accept you, for you; and yet rebuke, encourage, and correct you with gentleness and humility…

It’s odd how when we’re then surrounded by loving, humble, respectful people we become ourselves, loving, humble, respectful people… I think this is similar to handing over the entirety of your life to Christ. Maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said, “You will recognize them by their fruit.” When we live a life that has been put in the hands of God, walk in a body filled with the Holy Spirit, and take on a mind dedicated to Christ we bear fruit, the kind that is good…