Not Good Enough

Keep your eyes on the Lord!

You will shine like the sun and never blush with shame.

Psalm 34:5

This verse has always gripped me, as I have always felt insufficient, like a failure in some area,  not good enough, not pretty enough, not competent enough, and on and on and on.

Because my constant companion has been these feelings of "not enough," shame has always been my constant companion, as well. I have needed to hide my insufficiencies so that no one would see them and shame me because of them.  

Blech.


This has led to some serious, constant, exhausting running-dancing-tapping-jumping to keep everyone from seeing all that is true about me -- that I actually am not "good enough" or "smart enough" or "pretty enough" to win the race of life. I am a failure in so very many ways. And what a relief it is to admit!

This last week, I read Isaiah 50:6-7. Again, I was gripped in a similar way as I have been gripped by Psalm 34:5. This passage, also, speaks of not being ashamed. It is a prophetic passage in which Isaiah is speaking for Jesus, and Jesus says this:

"I gave my back to those who strike Me,
And my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard:
I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting.
For the Lord helps Me,
Therefore, I am not disgraced:
Therefore, I have set My face like flint,
And I know that I will not be ashamed."

Now, if anyone experienced true shaming, it was Christ. He was beaten, called a blasphemer, spat upon, His clothing stripped from Him, His beard (a symbol of manhood) ripped out . . . and yet He was not ashamed, not disgraced.

I have been thinking on this, asking the Lord for how this could be true. Not disgraced? Of course He was! Not ashamed? He well should have been. But these verses say that He was neither.

The reason He was not:

He knew who He was,
               Whose He was, and
                          what He was here to do.

(I use past tense, though He lives, as reference to His time here on earth.)

So, is the answer that easy for me? To know who I am, Whose I am, and what I'm here to do? If I know these things, will the shame, the guilt, the "you're not good enough" that others paint me with (and I paint myself with) -- with these seriously not stick to me?!?!

The short answer is "yes," but Psalm 34 gave a pretty clear and all-consuming prerequisite for this to sink into my heart from my head.

My eyes have to be on Him.

I can't just know in my head that "Jesus loves me" and that I'm His daughter and that I'm here to love Him and others more and more fully. THAT won't cut it. Head knowledge is usesless in matters of the heart, and my heart won't believe what it hasn't experienced. I have to experience this love He has for me. I have to taste His delight. Have to sense His pride that I'm His daughter.

I have to keep my eyes constantly on Him so that all that I'm hearing is His voice and not the voice of self-condemnation and the voices of the condemnation of others.

When Isaiah (and Luke in Luke 9:51) spoke of Jesus having His face set "like flint" -- this was a one-focus, nothing-interfering heartbeat and mindset.

In order to not let the "not good enough"s of the world stick to me, I have to only be hearing one voice -- His. The rest will not phase me as I listen only to Him.

Easy? No.
Worth crying out to Him for? Absolutely.

So, I pray. I cry out for Him to enable me to hear only His voice. It is certainly a life-long process, and some days are better than others. But He is answering. As I soak in Him, His presence, His truth, He is answering my heart's cry.


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These are some of the truths I love to soak in:

My darling, you are lovely in every way.
Song of Solomon 4:7

You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. It will no longer be said of you, "Forsaken" . . . But you will be called, "My delight is in her" . . . For the Lord delights in you . . . For as a young man marries a virgin . . .and as the bridegoom rejoices over the bride, So your God will rejoice over you.
Isaiah 62:3-5

The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love, Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness."
Jeremiah 31:3

The Lord your God wins victory after victory and is always with you. He celebrates and sings because of you, and he will refresh your life with his love."
Zephaniah 3:17

I, the Lord, will build a fence of thorns to block her path.
She will run after her lovers, but not catch them: she will search but not find them. Then she will say, "I'll return to my first husband. Life was better then."
I, the Lord, will lure you into the desert and speak gently to you.
Hosea 2:6-7,14

I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love -- not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Romans 8:38-39

May your heart come awake to the One voice that speaks gently and lovingly all the time.