When You Are Not Enough

By Global Frontier Missions

Following Jesus and making disciples of all nations is a privilege.

And yet while seasons of sweetness, victory and answered prayer are a very real experience for those living on mission and pursuing Jesus wholeheartedly, they’re also not the whole story.

What about those periods of time where you can’t shake the reality of your inadequacy, where you can’t seem to catch a break, where every new day brings another ministry disappointment or missional failure?

What about when you are not enough?

This isn’t something we like to talk about very much in ministry, but it’s prevalent. And is it any wonder? You invest your life into people. You pour your heart and soul into the work of disciple-making. You pray fervently and proclaim Christ faithfully.

And yet that’s all you can do. You can’t force someone to accept Jesus. You can’t coerce someone into greater Kingdom involvement. You can’t make someone love Jesus more.

The very thing you’ve been called and commissioned to do is something that you’re completely unable to do. It’s a spiritual work, and you can’t change hearts. Thus enters the disappointment, frustration, and feelings of gut-wrenching failure.

How should we respond to this? How do we rightly handle our own inadequacy for the heavenly task we’ve been assigned?

Look to Jesus. Our Lord and Commissioner is by no means caught off-guard by our lack of ability to accomplish the mission He’s left us. Which is why He hasn’t left us alone in this:

Jesus said to them,
“Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent Me,
even so I am sending you.”
And when He had said this,
He breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit…”
|  John 20:21-22  |

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that you’re alone. You are a vessel through which the Holy Spirit can now work in the hearts and lives of people. It’s His work. Preach the gospel to yourself daily. Remind yourself that the One who has called you is faithful, and He will do the very work He’s called you to do (1 Thes. 5:24).

You aren’t enough for the mission… but He is. Your work is to simply be faithful, and His work is to be fruitful. Rest in that today.

 

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