He is enough only if I am not

The trip to California was relatively uneventful except that heavy rains at my destination had closed some major airports. However, just as the rain stopped, I landed safely and was met by my third cousin whom I had not seen for forty years. I’m now enjoying the status of “an honored guest” for his father’s birthday party that begins in a few hours.

Before I left, I thought I’d correctly installed my Bible program, but to my surprise, my devotional book, there on my laptop, is locked. That means I need an Internet connection to unlock it. I do have access to a couple of other books, and God does not make mistakes. I was supposed to read from My Utmost for His Highest today, and am not surprised that it points to reaching that place in our spiritual journey where we can say that God is enough.

Peter was the disciple so eager to follow Jesus that I’m sure he was always bumping into the back of the Lord. However, as author Oswald Chambers points out, he was following out of fascination and in his own power. He had no need of the Holy Spirit because he wanted to do this.

After Jesus was arrested, Peter’s desires were challenged. Would he follow no matter what? Peter failed the test as he denied he knew the Lord. He was shattered by his own failure, but it put him in a position to really follow Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

No one can know the sufficiency of God until they come to the end of themselves. Sadly, I’ve had to learn that the hard way, and I think everyone else must also. I try all that I can think of, then ask God for help. Why not do that first?

The nature of sin answers that question. Sin is simply turning to our own way. We are born doing it and grow up wanting it and as adults fight for it. We think we know best, and even when we are stymied by the issues of life, it is the way of human beings to try everything else but God.

Peter didn’t like to be wrong. I don’t either. Yet I am learning that being wrong isn’t the crime or the sin. The error is where I go for help. Like Peter, I’ll follow Jesus if it feels good, yet the crux of the matter is not in the feel-good situations but in all situations. Will He be sufficient for me in trials? When I am in pain? Or fear? Or distress? Or, and perhaps the most difficult, will I follow Him when all is going well and it seems that I have no needs?

Learning that He is sufficient means learning what Peter had to learn. In John 13, he asked Jesus where He was going. Jesus replied, “Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward.” While this was about Jesus dying and rising again, it also was about the heart of this zealous man.

Even though Peter responded, “Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake,” Jesus predicted Peter’s denial. Although Peter insisted he would not, Jesus knew that something in Peter must die before he could follow Him anywhere.

As Chambers says, Peter had to come to the end of himself and all self-sufficiency so there was not one strand of Peter that he would ever rely upon again. It is in that destitution where we enter a fit condition to live by the power of God and not our own.

God is enough, but it is a costly journey to reach that place where I can say it.