Letters From Listeners: What Does It Mean When You Say Jesus is Enough?
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The following letter is from one of our listeners and contained a beautiful back-story. In order to protect her privacy, however, we chose to leave a lot of her details unwritten here. Her question stands on its own.
Hey there Andy and Kendra,
As someone stepping into the foreign world of homeschool/stay at home mom-ness I have let the internet fill me with knowledge about what I need to do be a better mom. If only I____________, then I will feel like I did a good job and I will know I am doing right by my family. I have started to have meltdowns over all of these things. I try to do it all during the day: homeschool my three-year-old, make family notebooks, bake my own bread, learn how to sew their clothes, make homemade cleaning chemicals, read about different homeschool styles, essential oils, church activities. But I end up yelling at my children who keep getting in the way of me trying to be a better mom. “Can’t you see Mommy is trying to make this so I can be a better Mommy for you, no I cannot read you that story right now . . . Why are you acting out right now, I am trying to learn how to be a better mom here.”
I listened to your podcast last night - episode 34 - and it was like it was straight from the Lord to stop me in my tracks. I had a rough time in high school and have a history of eating disorders and depression and I could feel the icy fingers of the need to gain “real” control over life coming these past few weeks. I just wanted to thank you so much for interviewing Kimm. It was like God’s wake up call to me to say, hey, guess what, this is where you are headed.
So now I am stuck with, if the standards of measure are taken away that I so desperately want to use to help me to make up for all of the selfishness in my heart for all of my sin, what now? How do you measure your days as a stay at home mom? How are you supposed to measure yourself with any hope at all of feeling not like a failure? How do you make Jesus “enough” for you to live through your day? I know it sounds like I am clueless or something but, how do you make the spiritual reality that God loved you enough to die for you and to take on the whole punishment for your sin so that you can glorify Him and spend eternity with Him, useful to you in your everyday physical life that is so messy? After a day with lost patience, a selfish heart that doesn’t want to read that story for the 12th time today, etc., what does it mean to say that Jesus is enough, what does it look like to live grace to your kids when you have a three year old who needs to learn to obey but also needs to learn about grace?
I am not sure you will even have the time to read this whole message but anyway, I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I can feel that the Lord has preserved our family in so many ways due to your podcast episodes as we are a young family just trying to hard to do it all right and so at risk for clinging to and running with standards of measures!
Thank you for your time, your work, and your ministry!
It's difficult, this idea, this truth that Jesus is enough. We tend to hear the gospel, respond, and then seek the law we humans are prone to loving so well, and we request, "Now tell me what I need to do."
Actually, I've stated that incorrectly. It's not difficult; it's incredibly simple. Jesus paid it all. When He said, "It is finished", He meant, everything. Every sin atoned for. Every human effort crossed out and made null and void. Every longing of our heart satisfied in Him. And then we say, "I get that. Now give me my checklist so I know I'm doing this following you thing well."
There's no checklist. There's only Jesus. He loves us so fully, that out of that love poured out over our lives, we are compelled to want to be like Him, to follow Him, to be changed in every nook and cranny by Him. By Him.
What, then, do you do? How do you measure your days? You do the next thing: feed the baby, wash the dishes, take a nap with the toddler, fold the laundry, run the errands, take the walk to the park, spray on the perfume, run the marathon, take the ballet class, watch the football game, kiss your husband, pour over your Bible . . . you live in freedom and do the next thing. In it all, you trust the Holy Spirit to change you. It's His work from the inside, not yours from the outside. No amount of organic rice flour bread baking or essential oil using or clothes sewing or {name it} is going to do that. Only Him.
How did He create you to be? Are you spunky and energetic? Be that, to His glory! Are you quiet and introspective? Be that, to His glory! Do you love people or animals, babies or business, art or sports or race cars or golf or math? Love those things, to His glory. He created you to be and do and love those things, and He redeems them for His glory and your good.
Jesus is enough. I promise. He promises. And His word is the Word.
-Kendra
