Is This Enough? Am I Enough?

From our jolting arrival on planet Earth until our final breath, when do we know when we have enough? Enough power, respect, beauty, notice . . . and exactly when and what is enough?

Society, superstars, acquaintances, friends, and enemies happily supply their answers. Marketers, teachers, and bosses press us up against the world’s measuring stick—it’s success-failure continuum. That’s not as sad, however, as the fact that we ourselves too often evaluate our own worth by that same stick: in our choices at work, as we earn and spend money, form relationships, and run over moral and ethical speed bumps.

Where do we go to find the freedom, the courage, to walk away from the conformity game? How does a person truly become one’s unique self, an original rather than a dull copy?

In Romans 12:2, we read, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." God clearly calls each of us to be an original, to become our true self.

Psalm 139 declares, "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Who better to know our unique purpose than the One who created us?

Apart from God, we cannot know or understand our created purpose. We bear the image of a creative God (Genesis 1:26-27), but our sinful natures have marred and deformed that image.

God now offers to transform us.

To renew our mind (Romans 12:2), God gives us the mind of Christ. With this new mind, we understand our true selves. We receive freedom and power, through God’s grace and the Holy Spirit, to be His original piece of work. No longer seeking to satisfy society’s standards, we are liberated from the tyranny of self-absorption . . . from the twin imposters of worthlessness or arrogance . . . from our false senses of failure or success.

To exchange the world’s expectations for God’s desires for us—well, harmony happens! As our minds transform within God’s grace, "we will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will" (Romans 12:2b).

Increasingly centered in God’s will, we begin to sense who and where we are called to be, regardless of the world’s notions or judgment. We can only be our true selves as we are faithful in the use of the opportunities and abilities that He gives us.

With a transformed mind, am I willing now to stand up as one of God’s originals, faithful to His purpose? Or do I prefer the comfort of fitting in where I don’t truly belong?