Ordinary Time 
Pause
Is God enough for you to be enough?
Too often, we focus so much on our own accomplishments and failures that we forget that God is behind the scenes, beneath our feet, beyond our imaginations doing unexpected things and offering undeserved grace. And maybe that’s enough . . .
“God has the power to provide you with more than enough of every kind of grace. That way, you will have everything you need always and in everything to provide more than enough for every kind of good work.”
2 Corinthians 9:8
Listen
The Lord God proclaims: I myself will take one of the top branches from the tall cedar. I will pluck a tender shoot from its crown, and I myself will plant it on a very high and lofty mountain. On Israel’s mountainous highlands I will plant it, and it will send out branches and bear fruit. It will grow into a mighty cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it and find shelter in the shade of its boughs.
Ezekiel 17:22-23
Think
Have you ever climbed a tall tree all the way to the very end of its highest branch? Unless you’re in a body cast right now, of course you haven’t.
If you’ve ever tried to climb a tall tree, you know that the branches thin out the farther away from the trunk you get. They’re smaller, lighter, and they can support much less weight, a flying squirrel at best.
So when God says that God’s going to pluck just such a branch, a “tender shoot,” to be exact, our expectations might be a little underwhelming. What kind of success can we expect from such a modest beginning?
According to God, the best kind of success.
Apparently, God is in the business of turning tiny buds into mighty trees and transforming even small acts of faith into remarkable outgrowths of God’s power.
Small is the new big.
And just a little is the new enough.
Dave McNeely
Pray
God, I admit that sometimes I pay too much attention to big and spectacular things and overlook what seems to be small and insignificant. But somehow, you’re at work even in the smallest of the small, and I pray for eyes to see the remarkable potential of what I often ignore. Help me to trust that you are at work even in the smallest details of my own life. Amen.
Go
“Our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.”
Augustine
Beneath our concerns that we may never be or have enough, may we seek and find rest in God’s abundant enough.
