When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”… Simon Peter’s brother spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

Despite being a millennial youth minister who spends half my time with teens, I’m not very consumed with social media. But earlier this week I found myself hooked on the two pictures included below. They show a stairwell-turned-installation at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I couldn’t stop reading the words on each step… Not Good Enough; Not Skinny Enough; Not True Enough; NOT… ENOUGH.

The steps may come across as pessimistic, but what holds my attention is the power and validity of these words. To me, they don’t stand out as brash and accusatory. They stand out because I recognize them. I hear these messages all around me. More than that, they’re often my own thoughts. Reading them, I hear my own voice.

I think this is a struggle that everyone experiences, whether they care to admit it or not. Enoughness is the root of our insecurities. Between ourselves and of the world around us, messages constantly lead us to question it. (And far more so for our teens.)

“Am I enough?” “I’m not ___ enough.” “If only I could be enough…”

It goes as far as making people envy qualities they don’t even value – Am I angry, mean, bad enough…

Of course, at one point it was true. We used to be lacking, in almost every way – broken people, unable to help ourselves. But that’s no longer the truth. Jesus has saved you and told you who you really are – You are His child whom He loves deeply. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Jesus tells us that on our own we don’t have to be good enough, because His grace is!

Still, it can be hard to believe it in our hearts. I sometimes wonder if I’m too broken for even Jesus to fix. Especially then, we MUST remember who we’re dealing with. This is Jesus, the one who healed lepers and rose from the dead. He makes us enough, just like He made five loaves and two fish enough for thousands of people. Scripture tells us each person ate as much as they wanted, and there was food left over.

Before Jesus, we were lacking, and that’s a difficult idea to shake. But God rescued us from that place, and He tells us that with Him we are far more than enough. He has and will make us to be enough; and miraculously He’ll use us to feed others.

God bless you!

Mark