THE STORM OF INADEQUACY

August 21, 2022

     Are there ever times in your life when you feel inadequate?  Times you feel you do not have sufficient resources for the task at hand?  Do you have those moments when you just feel insufficient?  I think this is a storm that is common to most of us.  You see, there are very few who are immune to the struggle for adequacy.  Even those we often view as strong and self-sufficient are not immune to these feelings.

Are there times when we feel we just can't go on?  Times we feel so overwhelmed we just seriously consider giving up?  You may not have ever struggled with this, but I admit I have.  That's where these articles are coming from each week.  The storms of life we are writing about are for the most part things that I have struggled with.

     Often those feelings of anger, rage and embarrassment, feeling of fear and loneliness and humiliation come to the best of us.  They are feelings that often come from a deep-seated sense of inadequacy.  A feeling we are just not up to the task.  To be suire, there are times these feelings run so deep we just want to disappear.

Have you ever felt inadequate to meet the needs and demands of family?  Have there been times you felt unable to fulfill the demands and expectations on the job?  Have there been those occasions when you felt unable to face another week when you just barely made it to Sunday.  Have there been times when dreams have crashed and burned and you wondered aloud if it was really worth it.  You see, it is always something.  Often we see those who exude confidence who are secretly struggling with feelings of inadequacy.  It is perfectly human.  To be human is to feel inadequate.

     Perhaps instead of focusing on inadequacy we need to think about adequacy.  What does it mean to be adequate?  It means we have the ability and resources to meet certain requirements.  It means we are capable.  We have what it takes to complete the job.  

     To be inadequate means just the opposite.  That's the reason most of us disguise our inadequacies.  It's hard to admit to ourselves we are weak and incapable.  It's even harder to admit it to our peers.  So, instead, we are good at pretending we have it all together.  We act as if we are capable of handling the most challenging situations in life when we really are not.  Truth be told, we are basically powerless to face most of what we will encounter in this world.  Guess what.  That's the way God made us.

     To be sure, few people in the Bible grappled with inadequacy like Paul did.  That might come as a surprise to you, but it is a fact.  We often find him contemplating the eternal significance of his ministry.  Doing this he wrestled with feelings of inadequacy.  Here is what he writes in II Corinthians 2:15-16,  "For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;   to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an  aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?" (NASB)  Then he writes in II Corinthians 3:4-6, "Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves,but our adequacy is from God,  who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." (NASB)  There are five words there we don't want to miss.  "Our adequacy is from God'.  The KJV says "our sufficiency is of God".

     Can you imagine how those 11 apostles felt?  Jesus told them they were to start a worldwide ministry.  He gave them the great commission.  They were to preach the gospel in all the world.  Jesus told them to go and preach, and yet, they remembered they had deserted Jesus.  Can you imagine their guilt and shame?  Yet, because of Jesus they were adequate to the task at hand.

     By and eye of faith, I want you to look at that group.  Jesus had risen from the grave victorious.  The disciples meet him in Galilee.  Matthew tells us in chapter 28 that they worshiped him, but some were doubtful.  Think of the contrast you have here.  Eleven trembling, confused and doubting disciples.  You also have present the all-powerful, completely adequate risen Lord.  The disciples are human, limited, weak, feeble and prone to failure.  

     Think about who was present in that group.  Peter who had deliberately denied Jesus.  A former tax collector.  There were a couple of hot-tempered fishermen from Galilee.  They had witnessed miracles Jesus had performed.  They were there when Jesus calmed the storm.  Yet, they had run for their lives out of Gethsemane that night.

     I don't want to cause us to think that the disciples were low in intelligence or lacking in zeal and devotion.  They were just human.  They were devoted and willing but they were inadequate.  To these frightened men, Jesus gave the great commission to go and make disciples of all nations. Notice also that Jesus says to them, "I am with you always".

     God does his best work in our weakness.  God can take weak, trembling and inadequate people. People    like you and me.  And God can use them and make them adequate.  He used a tongue tied shepherd named Moses to lead a revolution.  A fallen Shepherd Boy King was a man after God's own heart.  Peter becamc the great preacher of Pentecost.  Saul the persecutor became Paul the great apostle.  It yet remains to be seen what God can do with us.  Remember the words of Paul.  "Our adequacy comes from God.

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