God is truly enough – if only you knew it!

I have received this revelation after I just came back from living in India for two and a half years where Michael, me and Lisa were doing missions and starting a 24/7 Christian channel on cable called New Hope TV.

The work was exhilarating, starting a Christian channel featuring mostly local pastors on TV and broadcasting it to the local communities in their local languages. which reached into one million homes daily. The channel was setup to be interactive, get people to come to local meetings and into the local churches, ring the pastors or our prayer line directly and it was extremely effective for the work of the Kingdom. Thousands were saved and churches were planted with viewers from the channel.

Having an impact over a number of cities in this way was very satisfying. Yet, when we appointed a manager to look after it and returned to Australia, almost no one seemed to care about what happened, some of the pastors even belittled the work and said it was worth nothing unless we had a work behind us in Australia (we did not have our own ministry here, but we were sent by a local church!).

We felt a huge slump coming from changing entire cities with the Gospel to just living day to day life in Australia, trying to cover our bills and with nothing yet to do for God.

The monotony and boredom of it all really got to me. I tried to cover it up with going shopping (to make up for all the things I denied myself while in India) and with social engagements and play dates for Lisa. Usually these things had a ‘pick me up’ effect on me, but this time around, no matter how much I did these things, it did not give me any relief from this inner emptiness and dissatisfaction I felt.

One day I was in my backyard, hanging the clothes on the line, when I felt this feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction reached the boiling point in me. I cried out to God and asked Him: Why do I feel so empty and dead and I can’t I enjoy anything in life as I once used to?

His answer was the beginning of a life transforming revelation that enabled me to experience more joy and satisfaction than ever before in my life. He said to me:

“I temporarily withdrew your ability to enjoy the things you used to enjoy and I have allowed you to feel this emptiness because I want you to learn that I AM ENOUGH for you.”

I was ready to listen, I felt empty inside and sensed a gnawing death like feeling inside me that was eating me up, the death of exhilaration, of living on the edge, of exciting living. It felt for both me and Michael like a slow death process that hurt deeply and was continuous. I have later discovered that this is very common among missionaries returning from the mission field, who after doing great exploits for God, they have to face living a normal life again back in their home country.

I started to meditate on what God said to me and talk to Him about it. What does it mean that He is more than enough. How does that translate into practical living in a way that affects the way I feel about life? How can I overcome these feelings that are eating away at me with the knowledge that He is more than enough? I was not going to have just some theoretical theology lesson here, I needed much more than that, I wanted something that actually translated in real change in my day to day life and in my inner world. If this was going to be the answer, I had to dig deep with God and insist with Him till He downloaded to me the full meaning of this revelation.

He started to unpack this for me. This is what He said:

“Mari, never let your happiness in life depend on anything in this world that is temporary, that you can lose. What are you going to do then when you have lost it? You will be utterly devastated and feel miserable.

Do not be a fool. Make your source of happiness depend only on what you cannot lose now or for eternity. Only then your happiness is secure and you cannot be disappointed. And what do you have that you cannot lose for now and eternity? It is only Me. Make Me your only source of happiness and you will never be disappointed.

When I am your only source of happiness, you will find that life does not move you as much, with all its trials, you will be able to live above them. The loss of other things that devastate others, because they clung to those things for happiness, will not devastate you, if you lose them.

Make Me your ONLY source of happiness and treat all the other blessings in life as BONUSES. If you have them, wonderful! If you don’t have them, you can live without them (because they are only bonuses, not essentials)!”

This forced me to rearrange the way I view life. I made a decision to think the way He wants me to think and to place value for happiness and make my only source of happiness only in Him.

I chose to look at all other things as extras, as bonuses, not as essentials. I could enjoy them or I could live without them, they were of no consequence to my happiness any longer. They suddenly shrunk in size in my eyes, their value and importance drastically reduced. I did not NEED them for soul satisfaction, my source for happiness was out of this world, eternal, vastly superior!

I spoke with the one of the pastors who sent us out about what I was going through and she confirmed the same thing to me. She said that they have learned to hold all things loosely in their hands and be ready to release them at any time, if the Lord so requested. All their possessions, their ministries, even their children were held loosely and understood they came from God and belonged to God, they were just stewards or them for a season.

This massive renewal of my mind to think like God wants me to think caused enormous change in my overall happiness and inner satisfaction levels in my heart. I was not prepared for the freedom it gave me when my happiness was no longer dependent on anything earthly. I felt free and unattached, unchained. I was free from the demands of the things I put hope in for happiness. They no longer had a grip on my heart to pull me and make me feel like I am missing out when they were not present.

At the same time, the knowledge that God was enough and the focus on receiving all my inner satisfaction from Him, drew me closer to Him and make me feel extremely at rest inside my soul, secure, settled, as if I have found an eternal place that fitting me perfectly.

I actually started to discover me better in this place. I did not need to please people to feel good about myself, I did not even need to achieve much to feel good about myself and I did not need to be someone else to fit in or feel like I was somebody. I was very at rest with who I was. And I knew I could never be anyone better than who I was. I became fully content with being me.

I also became content with the world around me and I started to see deep under the surface of people, discerning their motivations and whether they have entered this rest I have experienced or not. I felt sad for those who didn’t it. So much flapping about, effort and straining, seeking to be somebody, to please people, to feel good about themselves. You see, if you don’t need people’s approval or even your own to be happy, you don’t play the performance game or the game of seeking their approval any longer. You are satisfied within yourself and don’t need this extra input to feel happy.

I became so at home with myself and God, knowing that I did not have to do anything or be anything else, that I almost drifted into laziness. I was so content with doing nothing! This was part of the learning process, but I had to eventually shake myself from this state and ask God what He wants me to do for Him next. But now I no longer just wanted to do ‘AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE’ for God, I was content to just be ‘OBEDIENT AND FAITHFUL’ to whatever He gave me to do, little or small. Whether a small or a large task, it was the same to me.

Obedience was my goal, not success. Faithfulness was my target, not how much was achieved. Yes, I had big dreams from when I was 18 to reach the nations for Jesus, yet I had to learn that I was not the Saviour of the world! Jesus was and I had just a piece of the puzzle in His worldwide plan to do together with Him to reach the nations. This revelations focused my vision on my piece of the puzzle, as big or as small as it was.

I realized that He says in His world that He has pre-ordained for us before the foundation of the world, works for us to do. Therefore, I no longer wanted to do ‘as much as possible for Jesus’, but I focused on doing the works He prepared for me to do before the foundation of the world. I started to ask Him daily for a download of what those works are and now I am living in and doing those works.

I don’t need to be like someone else, in fact, being like someone else is a negative to me. I don’t mean to not learn from the more mature, that is a must. What I mean is that being like anyone else other than me is a loss for me, it’s a waste of time and a distraction. I don’t need to be like Reinhaard Bonnke or like Billy Graham or even like the apostle Paul. I just need to let the expression of Jesus in me be display to the world, the part of Jesus that He wants to display through me.

It’s alright when you are trying to work out what the will of God and your calling is for your life to try various aspects of Christian work to see what triggers an awakening of what you were made to be or do and it’s ok to serve another ministry and learn till you discover your calling. Once you know your calling, you are responsible with God’s anointing to fulfill it.

Because I don’t need to be great through my own doing, I then don’t need to compete with you. I can rejoice when you have success because we are both running parallel paths towards the same goal and we have no need to compete or feel intimidated of each other.

This is another reason why I am not scared to speak to important people in society. I feel just the same about speaking to a president or a politician than I am to speak to anyone else. They are after all just people. Yes, I respect their position of authority, but after all they are just people with a different piece of the puzzle to accomplish in this world, just like I am.

Of course, all the changes above are not yet perfected in full in me and I have to daily watch myself not to slip in previous wrong ways of thinking and being. Yet as a result of all these changes within me and in my life, I can say that I have never been happier and more stable in my entire life since I have learned this. What sense of stability, safety, freedom, satisfaction and rest this creates in us!

It is fair to say that the revelation of ‘God is enough’ has completely changed my life. I have shared this revelation with others who were stuck in their pursuit for happiness and their life was radically transformed as well.

GOD IS OUR EXCEEDINGLY MULTIPLIED REWARD

GOD IS ENOUGH … if only you knew it at the heart level and believed it. The way to get to that place is through meditation. Genesis 15:1 says:

“I AM YOUR EXCEEDINGLY GREAT REWARD”.

I looked up every word in Hebrew to see their individual meaning so I can fully understand what He is saying. After all, this is an ‘I am’ statement – a definition God gives of Himself, one of His names. And eternal life is to know Him. The apostle Paul suffered the loss of all things so he might know Him.

The result was even more overwhelming that the verse appears to be at first glance. Here is the result of the study:

‘Exceedingly’ in Hebrew is ‘meod’ which means ‘great abundance, excessive, extreme, immense, very’

‘Great’ in Hebrews is ‘rabah’ which means ‘multiply’ and it is a verb, not an adjective

‘Reward’ in Hebrew is ‘sakar’ which means ‘wages, compensation, reward’.

If you put these 3 together, it sounds incredible:

I am for you your immensely multiplied compensation. I am for you your excessively, extremely multiplied reward. I am for you a greatly abundant and multiplied wage. I am for you a very multiplied compensation.

I am excessively generous, so if you seek Me you will encounter excessive generosity in return.

That’s why He says: I did not say to you: Seek Me in vain …

ACTION PLAN:

Make a choice to believe He is enough and keep meditating upon this till it changes your life. This is the sort of thought you should never really stop meditating upon it. God is your reward, you don’t need things in this life to make you happy. Let Him prove this to you, as you seek to put your happiness by a conscious willing choice on Him alone. Make Him your only source of happiness and treat all other things as bonuses you can enjoy or happily live without.

I believe that if you receive this message in your heart and meditate upon it as to absorb it in your being, it will change yours as well.

Don’t rush the process, life changing revelations take their time to be worked out in our hearts and change our whole life view. Just stay with it, meditating on what this means for you, and let it slowly but surely do its work in you.

One day you will wake up and realize you are a different person than you once were, a very happy, satisfied person, who rarely gets down emotionally and is enjoying life and feels so deeply at rest.

No better state to be than happy, content, free and at rest within you, regardless of the world around you…

NOTE:

I endeavored to use the word ‘happy’ or ‘happiness’ not because I think it’s the most correct form of expressing the idea of Christian joy or satisfaction, but because I felt God told me to use it as this is what people know and relate to best as a term for inner satisfaction and joy.

Let me know your thoughts below or if you have any questions for clarification.