Young men, in the same way be
submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility
toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the
humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may
lift you up in due time. (I Peter 5:5-6)
"Not good enough." I have
used that phrase as a name of my own demon. Those are the words I have heard so
many times, I've started using its initials instead of it's formal name: NGE.
The world says, "Oh, no, don't say that. Everyone is good enough. You just
need to think more positively about yourself."
After
quite a few years of failing to rise to the "unreasonable" standards
that I seem to set, I've come to a realization: I am not good enough. I will
not only never meet my own standards, I will not meet all the standards that
other people set, and more importantly, I will not meet God's standards. I know
God meets His own standards, but I doubt He can meet everyone else' (mine
included) because in meeting ours, He would probably have to violate His own.
The
solution to "Not Good Enough" is not
"Yes, I Am Good Enough," but "You're right. I'm not good
enough but that's OK because God is." The solution to NGE is not more
pride, but more humility. Today's passage says that God opposes the proud but
gives grace to the humble. He doesn't oppose the proud because they are a
threat to His own ego. He opposes the proud because they believe the lie that
they are good enough. God doesn't tell us to be humble so He can grind us into
the dirt. He tells us to be humble so that we stop trying to grind Him into the
dirt because, quite simply, it doesn't work. This isn't about pretending to be
a worm, but in accepting that we are who and what we in fact are.
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