iRepent: I Want Jesus to be Enough

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I really want Jesus to be enough, but I need help.

Two plus years ago:

I had been in New York for a few days, living in a basement, visually attacked on all sides by what my life had become. Dust, boxes and boxes of junk, strange smells, the ping-pang of the boiler pipes which ran straight through the “room” and the ominous sounds of unidentified scurrying pests, daily reminded me to never get comfortable here. I was a professional and couldn't live like this, so I made a plan for redemption. The first thing I needed was to do research, I needed a laptop.

With the last couple hundred dollars of my savings, I purchased myself a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop with Windows Vista, sweet Windows Vista. The device fulfilled its goal and a few months later, I was out of that rut.

Two weeks ago:

“My laptop is crap,” I said in embarrassment every time I pulled out that dusty, finger print and body oil smeared, corner-cracked piece of black hard plastic out of my jungle-torn “laptop” bag. I needed it for university, I had Windows 7 but I wasn't in love with it, I really needed a new laptop anyway, maybe an iPad.

And then, it stopped working entirely. All my assignments, purchased music, programs and pictures were on this dead piece of plastic junk. And as was inevitable when bad things happen, I had an essay due.

I shared the story with my less than sympathetic Advanced Expository Writing Professor, “ I think you'll have to lose a letter grade, for turning in your paper late,” our relationship became complicated. “I guess I'll have to write it from scratch,” he was unmoved.

Perhaps it was after I had failed to repair my laptop for the tenth time, or became accustomed to the velocity of Windows XP on the home desktop, circa 2004, but I learned to deal with it. I just accepted that I could not have internet access everywhere I went. I just accepted that I wouldn't have all the fancy graphics. There is a time to accept, or better yet, appreciate our stations in life.

Our world runs on dissatisfaction, the reason our gyms are full, our wallets are not full enough, our job are full of “idiots”, our relationships are full of problems and the Apple store is full of people on a Saturday morning.

I don't so much preach to you, as I sit with you and admit something has gone wrong, but its not everything going on around us, it is in us.

A pastor once sat with an older mentor in the ministry one day and began to pour out his heart. He spoke about all the difficulties involved with planting a church,without a building, without people, without help. The older minister stopped him mid-sentence, “Is Jesus Enough?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, of course, but these are real problems,” and he began to list them in detail.
The older minister politely stopped him again, “everything after that 'but' is a sad excuse for a Savior.”

“Is Jesus Enough?”

“...in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
-2 Corinthians 12:7-10

God Help Us.

Jean-Marc

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