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
He continued, “What’s a good image for God’s kingdom? What parable can I use to explain it? Consider a mustard seed. When scattered on the ground, it’s the smallest of all the seeds on the earth; but when it’s planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all vegetable plants. It produces such large branches that the birds in the sky are able to nest in its shade.”
Mark 4:30-32
Think
Do you ever feel like your best is never good enough? Not terrible, but just not . . . enough? The mustard seed feels your pain.
Despite popular imagination, the mustard seed doesn’t blossom into a sequoia-sized tree. Instead, it grows into “the largest of all vegetable plants.” That’s like saying, “He’s the fourth best basketball player whose name begins with the letter H” or “She has one of the best singing voices in the entire science class”… Um, thanks?
As it turns out, though, birds don’t need sequoias, and God doesn’t need the best of the best. As it turns out, a “good image for God’s kingdom” is something small, something easy to overlook, something on the border of insignificant.
But . . .
It’s the little things where God’s kingdom takes root – little things like a smile, a word of kindness, the faith that God can work with the smallest gifts we have to give.
Dave McNeely
Pray
God, sometimes I doubt my significance and feel so small. Help me to trust that you are able to use me powerfully, no matter how small or insignificant I feel. Give me courage today to act in small ways with great love. 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.
