“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Cor. 12:9
Ever feel inadequate? Dictionary.com uses these as synonyms of inadequate. Inapt, incompetent, defective, imperfect, incomplete. Sometimes I feel so inadequate it’s a wonder I get up in the morning to face the day. Other times, I feel inadequate to less of an extreme. But inadequacy has been my sidekick for as long as I remember. Constant, grueling rejection through the years, coupled with feeling like a miserable failure when it comes to the world’s standards and expectations, lends itself to a pretty much perpetual sense of blatant inadequacy. If you suffer like I do from feeling inadequate, whether somewhat or to an extreme like me, I have good news for you. In the midst of the yuckiness of feeling inadequate, I have found some breathtakingly beautiful blessings:
- com says the antonym of inadequate is sufficient. I am ultra aware of my insufficiency, but God’s grace is sufficient.
- I am inapt, or incapable, but God is capable.
- I am defective as a human for we are all sinners, but God by His Spirit through His Word is ever transforming me. Rom. 12:2
- I am imperfect, but God is perfecting His love in me.
- I am incomplete, but God completes me. Col. 2:10
- I will never measure up to the world’s expectations and standards, but I was created in God’s image not the world’s, and He will finish the work He started in me. Gen. 1:26 / Phil. 1:26
- Feeling so inadequate helps me to remember to repent of pride and to continually humble myself which God commands. James 4:10
- Because I am so aware of my inadequacy, I know to give God glory for everything good rather than to take credit myself. 1 Cor. 10:31 / Eph. 2:8-9
- I am more sensitive to others’ needs because I am so aware of my own.
- My constant glaring feeling of inadequacy keeps me hungry, yearning, thirsty, aware, knowing, desperate for more of Christ and to be closer and closer to Him. Mt. 5:6
- I am well aware of my sin and need to repent continually and to ask for and receive God’s forgiveness through Christ. 1 John 1:9
- God is close to the needy, the poor, the naked, and broken. Feeling so inadequate helps me know my ever need for Him, to cry out continually to Him, and to receive the love, mercy, peace, hope, and infinite blessings He gives to those who know their need for Him and cry out to Him and receive Him. Rev. 3:17, Psalm 34:18, Mt. 5:3
The next time you feel inadequate, look to the Lord who is infinitely adequate and is the only One who can make us complete – in Him.