Makers And MonstersSample

# You're Still Not Good Enough There was a time in my life when all four corners of my heart came crashing in. And to get my mind off of it, I became obsessed with how I could better myself.  I became a producing machine. I would work out twice a day. Spend hours writing. Making phone calls to clients. Working endlessly from sun up to sun down. I would be a liar if I said I hated it. As a matter of fact, I loved every minute of it. Every ounce of my life consisted of me producing something…something that would make me feel validated and wanted by others. About a month into this new cycle of work, I woke up one day with the flu. And it scared me, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to work at the level I had been working. Drowning myself in my work was the only way I knew to remove the pain of my fathers passing. And while laying in bed, riddled with a fever, Jesus finally brought my selfishness to my attention. This was the first time in my life that I realized that I was relying on my experiences, situations, and dreams to create. And what I had left out was The Original Maker. And that I was my worst enemy. Friends: if we leave The Original Maker out of our creations, our creations will have no lasting legacy, because they are created on sinking sand. And this is exactly what I was doing. I was literally hiding from Jesus behind my work. I wanted the control. I didn’t want to believe that Jesus could fulfill me. I wanted my earthly father to do that. I wanted my products to do that. But here's the beautiful thing about the damage we create through our monsters: Jesus is the greatest Maker of them all, and He has already conquered our monsters for us. Friends: listen to me. You and I both know that you have had trouble in your life. And that trouble intensifies from season to season. Difficulty is an inescapable aspect of living in a cursed world. And whether your are a CEO of a thriving business, a starving artist in San Francisco, or a stay-at-home mother with 4 screaming children, we all feel like we fall short in some capacity. But there are glimpses of goodness to be seen and joyful experiences to be had. God's common grace ensures that life is not a long sequence of monstrous events. Maker: the love of Jesus feels the pains of our monsters the most. The Holy Spirit has introduced to our souls to a foretaste of the perfect, heavenly world that has been created in the image of our Creator. We all have times where we worry that Jesus won't sustain us or when our hearts fail to find comfort in all that He is. That’s when we ask ourselves "Will he really sustain me? Will he really be enough for me?” He will absolutely sustain you. John 10:29 explains to us that "nothing can snatch us out of the Father's hand." And He even goes on to tell us how much He loves us, even when we don’t believe Him in Romans 8:38-39. Friends, with God on our side like this, there’s no chance that we can lose! While we are coming to an end of our 5-day devotional journey, there's something that I want all of us to remind ourselves about: We will never be good enough, because Jesus is more than enough. Psalm 73:26 reminds us of the most beautiful thing about our journey together: our monsters will continue to bring times of trial and trouble, but our hearts can live in a place where we can be strong enough to defeat any enemy that comes into our lives. And in those moments, we remember just how loved we really are. You will never have all the answers to defeat your monsters. But as a maker, you don’t have to have all the answers. You will always be a maker. You will always be a monster. You will never be good enough. Because Jesus will always be more than enough.