Enough

The other day I was making a cake and I went in the drawer looking for my favorite spatula.

It's nothing fancy, but it works the best and it's cute.  I have another rubber spatula but it's too soft and doesn't work well for scraping the side of the bowls.  I found myself thinking, I really need to get more of these.  And then I stopped.  Literally stopped as in stood still, holding the prized gadget in my hand and in my mind I rephrased my statement.  I would like more of these but do I really need them?  No.

This one great working spatula is enough.

How many other things in life do I think I need more of?  Think is the key word.  What I think is not necessarily reality, but how I perceive reality.  Big difference.

Life would be easier with another spatula, I could argue.  Maybe. But that is one more gadget in the drawer and I wonder if I would still reach for the happy snowman spatula I received for Christmas in 2008. Life would be easier with more money.  Would it?  How many people win the lottery and end up miserable.

Life would be easier if...  fill in the blanks we can find all sorts of ways our current situation could change.

But we don't make one change in a vacuum, do we?  If I change X then it will impact Y.  (This from a self-proclaimed mathphobe..but I did love science...)  Perhaps sometimes instead of always wanting more, better, different, it is more appropriate to be content, to allow ourselves to experience a situation fully rather than seek to tweak it.

As happens to me frequently, in that moment where I literally stopped and asked myself if I needed a spatula, I thought of a Bible verse that has nothing to do with food or cooking but everything to do with having enough.

2 Corinthians 12:9, But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (NIV)

I don't need more of anything else because with God's grace, what else is there to need?

If only I could be that satisfied, content and appreciative of all that I do have. Instead, I want another this and more of that. More and different would change the current situation and perhaps in that change whatever unrest I felt would go away?  If I let myself be still, accepting and content, there might be times of anxiety or frustration.  (What if I need to use the spatula and it's dirty?  Gasp!  I would have to wash it..by hand.)

My challenge in life right now is to relax into the knowledge that I can choose to trust in God and His grace to provide rather than trying to fill my life with widgets which will only get in the way.  I can choose to pray and believe and accept that I have a purpose and that God can use all for good and that yes, His grace is sufficient for me.

May you also feel that freedom to trust that there will be enough of what you need.

-Peace