Last week a friend and I were having a conversation about this. She admitted that she had been having a downward tug on belief in herself and whether she was “enough” as a mom, a writer….you name it.

 

I get it!

 

I also get those feelings and temptations to “go there” no matter what our age or season of life. I have experienced them quite often over the course of my lifetime.

 

Feelings of inadequacy can come for many reasons or no seeming reason at all sometimes.

 

They can start as a sense of just feeling “off” and move to that sense of having a gnat or fly relentlessly buzz around you creating irritation. If left unchecked, it can start to weigh us down like lead weights pulling us to the bottom of the sea.

 

It’s not really depression so much, but we simply stop moving forward. Doubt comes in alongside and does its usual dirty work as well. We can start to get mired down.

 

Doubt brings with it a long list of areas where we see ourselves as “less than”.

 

Doubt has been around since Eden and is a far more significant enemy than we might think. It’s subtle, shifty, and can be deadly.

 

Ask Adam and Eve.

 

All of these remind me of when Solomon shares that it is the “little foxes that spoil the vines”. These things nibble away at us so our strength and vitality start to ebb away.

 

I grew up not only feeling that sense of inadequacy, but also believing it so strongly that it greatly influenced my life for a time. When I came to understand the truth of its source, I began to do better at defeating it from overtaking me so easily as it had for a long time.

 

It can happen very often when we start something new. It certainly happened for me when I started writing on this website a bit over a year ago, but I could say it has been true when I stepped into other new areas as well. I could easily feel that as a wife and parent, a teacher or even as a professional clinical counselor.

 

The good news is that we are often led by the Lord to step out, take a risk, and move into some new thing or area. It is one of the ways He strengthens trust, faith, and reliance on Him. It is also a very important way He uses to allow us to discover gifts and abilities He has placed in us that we were not aware of or only had a slight sense might exist.

 

I am quite sure He has grinned at me (or you) more than once when we have risked moving into a new area and discovered it was something we actually could do fairly well. Perhaps it awakened a passion we were hesitant or fearful to explore.

 

The BEST news is the truth found in Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3:5 which I am sharing in the NLT today:

 

“It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.”

 

 Coming to grips with that powerful truth puts everything in better focus. He gives us His lens to see more clearly.

 

If I (or you) were totally adequate to do or be anything, we would never grow in our relationship with Him nor could we discover the gifts He placed in us for His use when we rely on His adequacy.

 

The challenge is that the enemy of our souls does NOT want us to discover, know, or keep that in our hearts and minds. In fact, he knows our frailty so well that he is counting we cannot or will not gain this knowledge.

 

He starts whispering lies that we don’t even recognize as him and before long we think “we” are the ones thinking and feeling this. It can take us on so many rabbit trails where we shift our focus even more on ourselves. That is when the Lord begins to fade and we start to lose whatever truth we owned on this.

 

So here is what I want you to know.

 

You are His child if He resides in your heart.

 

He loves you more than you can ever imagine.

 

He has created you uniquely for His purposes including the gifts He has placed in you that look differently than similar gifts look in anyone else.

 

He is NOT expecting you to be adequate on your own, but because of Him you can be adequate.

 

“It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.”     2 Cor. 3:5 NLT

 

He is totally adequate for whatever He asks me (or you) to do.

 

You can trust Him!