Wholly Yours

You may have noticed that it's rather popular in American culture to use imaginary mathematical figures like "110%." Last night, I heard more than once someone say, "150,000%." That's 1500 times whatever the entirety of a thing is. 

And yet, this is where we are in our society - always trying to give more than we have. It's why, I think, faith can be so difficult sometimes. 

Because we're told over and over again that we have to keep being more. That we have to excel, that we have to exceed. That we have to do the nearly-impossible, or indeed, the impossible, if we want to do anything at all. God says we're supposed to give Him all we have, all we are, and our faulty math makes us look in the mirror and wonder whether that's enough.

It's not so much that we're afraid we're not giving enough. If it were, that would be simple. What's so dangerous about this line of thinking is that it subtly creeps in until we're afraid we don't have enough to give.

What is God supposed to do with a measly little me?

So we're always looking for a way to give God more. More than the best of ourselves. More than the rest of ourselves. More than everything we are. All of me is simply not enough.

But God never requires more of you than you have. He doesn't ask you to give Him the world; He asks you to give Him yourself. You don't have to feel responsible for giving God more than all that you are. He already knows all that you are. And there's a reason for it. There's a reason He made you just this way. 

It's actually exactly what He expects from you. 

Still, we beat ourselves up like somehow, God was expecting more. Like He's disappointed that we aren't 150,000% or even 110% of who He made us to be. 

Can any one of us change God's incredible creation? Can we challenge His intelligent design? Why do we think that we know better who we ought to be than the Creator of the Universe who made us precisely this way? Who looks at us with incredible pride and declares our creation...good? 

There's no shame in not being more than who you are. There's no embarrassment in being simply you. You don't need to give into this pressure that tells you that you're not enough, that you don't have enough to give. It's not about that. You have everything in the world to give, and when you give your everything, you're doing it. 

That's what God wants from you. From us. From me. He wants our everything. Nothing less and certainly nothing more. Would you even have it to give? Of course not! And what's so ironic is that the harder we try to find more than our wholeness to give to God, the less we end up actually giving Him. It's like we're stocking it up, saving it up, tucking it away until it feels like enough. Then we'll give it to Him. Then we'll surrender. Then we'll have a worthy offering.

Just stop it. You have a worthy offering now. It's you. The wholeness of you. Not 1500 times the man you are, or the man you ought to be. Not even 1.1 times your fullness. It's 100%. It's all of you. It's your everything. 

And it's enough.