Teen Track: God Is Not Enough (Lie #1)

Erin Davis: Some of you have read the book Lies Young Women Believe. You might be familiar with the twenty-five lies Nancy and Dannah address in the book; some of you may not be. Some of you may read the blog, and you have some familiarity. But if I were to ask you what is the biggest, fattest lie, the most plaguing lie, the lie that most young women believe, what would you say that it is? Just holler it out.

"You're not pretty." That's a big one—that made the list. All right. Over here, the biggest, fattest lie. Anybody got an idea?

"Nobody loves me."

"You're worthless if a guy doesn't like you."

"God is not enough." That's it! (I was hoping nobody would guess it.) That's what we're going to hover on right now is that God is not enough. And all those other lies that you guys have addressed, that "I've got to have a boyfriend, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not lovable." Those are all lies that made the list of the top twenty-five that young women believe (y'all should write a book). But I believe that the biggest, fattest lie that plagues young women is this—and I want you to write it down—"God is not enough."

In fact, as I was telling Heather about this kind of idea I have in my mind—I'm a visual kind of person—of anger being the plant, maybe deception being the root, or some of these other things being the root that were just feeding the anger. I would venture to say that this lie, "God is not enough," is the big granddaddy root of many, many, many lies that we believe. It's just feeding the other lies—they're just offshoots a lot of the time, right?

For example, if I have to have a boyfriend to be happy, that's not really about the boyfriend. That's really about this big granddaddy root that's burrowed its way into our lives, that "God is not enough . . . I need something else." It might not be the boyfriend for you.

In my real life, I'm a total hippie momma. I always say I'm "crunchy granola," but not "crunchy granola, hairy armpits." I have a goat, I have a donkey, I live on a farm, and my favorite thing in the world is gardening—I know, I'm weird. So I rock the greenhouse, and I'm always out there looking for the cabbage bugs . . . that's my real life.

I'm fascinated by plants, and one thing that is really fascinating to me is dandelions. Did you know that dandelions can have a root that is miles long? That's why if you kill a dandelion, the next day you go out there and you say, "Oh, nice of you to send forty-six of your friends to my house—that's just rude!" (Laughter) In fact, I chase rabbits a lot to try to keep them out, but I have third-degree burns from here to here this spring because I was trying to kill dandelions with boiling water. Just use Round-Up.

If you don't kill that root that can sometimes be up to a mile long—think about that—then the dandelions will just keep coming back. I want us to think of this lie that God is not enough as like that dandelion root. It goes really deep, and we just see stuff on the surface that really is connected to this dandelion root that God is not enough.

You may be thinking, I don't struggle with God as not enough. I am at a Christian conference, after all, and I wore my Christian shirt! Of course I know that God is enough. But I think for most of us—I want to say all of us, but that may be an overstatement—there are areas of our lives where we are living like God is not enough, like we need something more.

This is a lie that has wreaked havoc on my life and a lie that God has been trying to pull that mile-long root up out of my heart for the past several months, and it's been painful, to be honest with you. There are some lies where we can just identify them and then turn and go in the other direction. We can deal them a deathblow so to speak. But as Keith and Krysten were talking about beauty and pride being one of those areas where we're unable to deal a deathblow, unable to "remove the stone," I think this is probably one of those areas. And when God starts to deal with that "dandelion lie" in our lives, it hurts.

Let me tell you a little bit about how the process has gone in my life in the past year. My husband—some of you saw him a minute ago—he is six-foot-two, fabulous. He is soo good-looking, and so wonderful, and he brought me Twizzlers, which "hello." But he's been a youth pastor since before we were married—all of our married life and since before we were engaged, he's been a youth pastor.

In fact, if you were to meet me a few months ago, one of the first things I'd tell you in the first five minutes is that we were youth pastors. It was part of my identity. Then this year, he left being a youth pastor—there was no big drama, no scandal—he left to come on staff here at Revive Our Hearts.

So he's not a youth pastor anymore, and that has been surprisingly painful for me. Even though I'm thrilled that he's working for Revive Our Hearts, and he's great at it, and he's happy, it's exposed something, scraped something on my heart that I didn't know was there . . . an identity issue. My identity was tangled up in that one thing. It was who I was.

So I didn't really believe God was enough, because I wanted God and to be involved in student ministry. I was adding to it. Yours probably isn't being in student ministry, but there might be a part of your life that you just can't imagine untangling yourself from. "This is who I am."

Maybe it's, "If I can just be valedictorian."

"If I could just be the star athlete."

"If I can just be popular."

"If I can just stay popular."

"If I can just do music for a living. Music is who I am; it's what I do. Who I am is wrapped up in it. I have to have it."

"Then I could be happy."

So if there's some part of your identity that you feel like, "I'm not me without this thing. I can't be happy without this thing," that's a little indicator that that's an area of your life where you're believing that God is not enough. So that's kind of the first blow. I had to walk away from this identity-making thing of being in student ministry. I handled that one—actually I was on tour with Dannah—and I cried for like ten days (pretends to sob), because it was painful.

But I chose God's truth. I said, "You know what, God, even if we're not in student ministry, even if I don't get to be with teenagers all the time,"—when we left our church—"even if I have to leave that church I love, You are enough. I choose You."

Following that—working through that first level—I had to say "no" to some opportunities that I really wanted to do . . . really good opportunities. Things that I really, really wanted to do, and I had to say "no" to them. And honestly, it felt gut-wrenching. I sort of felt like, "I'm not sure I can be happy if I don't get to do this." And it didn't feel good.

So I had to wrestle with God again when I didn't get my way. Is God enough, even when He doesn't give you the opportunities that you want Him to give you? Even when you don't get into the number-one-choice school? Even when you don't get into the program of the career that you want to have? Even when you don't get into the activity or the sport at school that you feel like, "This is a really cool opportunity, God. I don't understand why I can't have it"?

Is God enough when you have to say "no" to those things? That's the next level. Work through it. Say, "Okay, God, this doesn't make me feel good. I feel like I would be happier if I could do those things, but You're enough. I'm going to choose You, even though it doesn't feel good." Work through that.

Next blow—I'm telling you, my dandelion root was like four miles long—God was asking, "Am I enough, Erin?" It was a stripping process that I'm still in the middle of. So next we had to move. We moved from a town that we had been fully anchored in for six years. We had great friendships; we had people we loved.

We had left our one church and gone into another church that the Lord had miraculously folded us into. We loved it. I had lots of people, and we had great sushi restaurants. And then I moved to a town with three thousand people, and we've got a Burger King and a McDonald's and two stoplights, and no one's ever heard of sushi, and there isn't any Starbucks, and it's really hard!

So I had to pack up my whole life. How many of you have moved in the last five years? That is, no joke, not fun. We were living out of boxes for weeks—we're still living out of boxes. The "miracle" I'm praying for this week is that somehow, when I get home, the boxes will be unpacked—but I don't think that's going to happen. I had to say, "God, You're enough when I can't find anything because it's in boxes."

And even a harder one—I had to leave some really intimate friendships, and I had to say, "God, You're enough, when I don't have those friends close by anymore."

On top of that, my dog died. It sounds like a sad country song, right? [sings] "I don't have no sushi, I don't have no friends, and my dog got hit by a car." I know, right? It was really sad. I made it through the move, I said goodbye to my friends, but I got to take my Emma Lou with me. She was my dog who I loved, she was just a great dog, and we moved [puts up a picture of Emma Lou]—there she is—and I loved her so much, and then this big nasty truck hit her, and I was so sad.

It was like, "Seriously, God, Emma was the only friend I had left, and now she's gone." And it was sad, and I cried a lot about it. It hooked something in my heart. I would have never thought that I was the kind of girl who had to have friends in order to be happy—who had to have companionship in order to be happy. But when I lost those things, I was suddenly really unhappy.

I was really wrestling with, "Is God enough when I don't have people to go to lunch with? Is God enough when my calendar is empty? Is God enough when my dog dies?"

And as we interviewed girls for this book, the main thing that rivaled God for being big enough was their friends. A lot of times I had to kind of work to get them to tell me what the lie was, but in this area, I didn't. Eighty-eight percent of them told me that they needed their friends more than God. Eighty-eight percent of them.

They'd say things like, "No, I don't think God is enough. If I could just have my friends and God, then I'll be happy, but I don't think I could be okay without my friends." And hear this, I got kind of lambasted on this. I run the Lies Young Women Believe blog, and I did a post on this lie, "God is not enough." And this woman or girl left a comment.

She just nailed me to the wall; she was kind of mean about it (if it was one of you, that was not nice). Anyway, she said, "God made us to be in relationship, and God is a triune God and you're telling people that they don't have to have friendships, and you're just going to make people feel bad. We need to have friendships." And I agree with all of that, but if your friends are what make you feel okay, if your friends are what you need to be happy, if your friends are who you have to run to when life doesn't go well—or when it does go well—then that's a problem.

God gives us friends, and I'm so thankful for friends, but you need to be able to be enough apart from that.

The other lie that we had to pry out of them was that they weren't sure God was good. They were worried that He wouldn't give them good things. The question is, "Is God enough when He's the only friend I have in this world or if it doesn't feel like He's the only friend I have in this world?"

Dannah and I talked this week—she called one day, and asked, "What's wrong with you? You're subdued"—which, I'm never subdued. And I said, [moans] "Well, Emma died"—and I cried about it. "And it's sad. I can't believe I'm crying over this dog." But she prayed for me and she said, "Lord, would you please help Erin to speak to those girls who feel like they don't have a friend in the world?"

And that's probably not true, but we spend a lot of time—junior high, high school, college years—feeling like, "I have no friends. I have nobody I can count on." That's probably not true, but God's given me fellowship with those of you who feel that feeling this week, and it's no fun. It's great to pray for friends and to ask God to bring them into your life, but it's better to say, "God, would You be enough to me in this season where it feels like I don't have enough friends?"

I'm calling this season of my life—when we left youth ministry and when we moved and when we lost our friends—I'm calling it "the seismic shift," because sometimes it feels like everything in my life is moving, everything is changing. But God has not moved. And I have to ask myself, Is that enough?

I'm a Bible teacher, and I'm a writer, and I know the right answer. But you know what? Things are never going to change in your faith until you stop speaking Christianese . . . until you stop just giving the answer you know you're supposed to give . . . until you stop saying, "Oh, everything's fine; God is enough. I know I'm supposed to say that."

To be honest, I've had to wrestle with it. "God, are you enough right now, because I don't feel I have much else. Are You enough?" Sometimes we realize that God is enough when He's all we have left. Can I tell you, in the face of all those things, God is enough? He's been more than enough to me as I've lost of all those things that I wouldn't have wanted to lose.

But He wants us to live out that truth even when there are lots of other things that we could put our hope in. That's not normal for us—that doesn't feel right. What Nancy talked about last night, about intentionally seeking the Lord, that feels unnatural. Gravitating toward things other than God to make us feel okay, that's more natural. So you have to have a commitment to "swim upstream" in order to do it.

A lot of girls have this irrational fear that God wants to strip everything away from them. "Okay, if I choose that God is enough, what's He going to do to test me on that? If I choose to really believe He is all I need, what is He going to take from me?" And He might. He's been stripping me—and He's been enough, in the process of it.

But there's another lie there, and we need to call it out, and that lie is that God is not really good—and it's a lie. The Bible is really, really clear that God is good, and you can hang your hat on that. We have this fear that He's waiting with a lightning bolt to zap us, that He wants to take things away from us just to test us, that He has kind of a cruel streak that He might use at any time, and that's not what the Bible says.

He is good. You can trust Him with everything, because He's looking out for you. He's on your team—He's good. A great example from this week: My Emma Lou—she was a Goldendoodle; she was one year old. She was a gift to us, actually, from somebody who knew we wanted a dog, and I loved that she was one, because I didn't have to housebreak her and all that—and she was this great, great dog, okay?

Then she gets hit by a truck, and I'm really sad. I watched her get hit, I picked up my two little boys, I ran in the house so they didn't have to see Emma—they're crying, I'm crying—but immediately I get down on the floor with my two little boys, and I said, "Let's pray."

I knew Emma didn't make it, so we didn't pray for her, and after I explained to my boys that Emma was in heaven (I don't have enough dog theology to know if that is true, but I hope she is—and you say that when you have a four-year-old and a two-year-old). So we talked about that, but then immediately with those two little boys, I said, "Let's ask the Lord to give us a new dog."

And they cried, "We want Emma," and I cried, "I want Emma," and "We can't have Emma, so, Lord, would you give us a new dog?" How many of you have a ridiculously obnoxious dog? Yeah—so that's the one I did not want. And how many of you have a dog who still pees on the floor and is like seven years old? That's also what I did not want. I did not just want to go to the pet store or the pound and get a new dog.

So I said, "Lord, would you bring me the right dog?" So His eye is on the sparrow, He knows when they fall. His eye was on Emma—He knew what it meant to me—and I just prayed for that from Him. And for days I said, "Lord, I know it's just a dog. I know there's a conflict in the Middle East that You're dealing with, and I know there's a presidential election going on, but would You bring me a dog? Because I would like to have a dog." And how many of you know that you can talk to Him about that stuff?

I sometimes wonder if my things are too trivial. No—He says, "Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, present your requests before God." So for days I'm praying for a dog, and then we get this phone call from Jason's aunt, "Hey, this Aunt Christy"—she works at a vet—"and this family just came in, and they have to move to the city, and they have a dog and they're looking for a home for it."

And I sobbed over my cheeseburger, in Culver's, and my sons said, "What's wrong?" and I cried, "Jesus gave me a do-o-o-g!!!!" And they were thinking, Our mom is a crazy, freaky girl. We didn't know anything about the dog, didn't know the people, didn't know anything about it—so my husband goes out the next day. I said, "You should go—we shouldn't take the boys—because if this is a pee-on-the-floor kind of dog, I don't want it. Unless it's the Lord's will, but I just don't think it is. I'm praying for a good dog." I said, "Baby, would you go and check the dog out, and if it's a good fit, would you bring it back?"

So my husband comes home with this [puts photo on screen and the listeners say, "Awwww" spontaneously in unison] . . . which is Marley, who is four years old, housebroken, same breed as Emma, same breeder as Emma, probably the same parents as Emma. And we were in a whole different town when we got Emma, we lived two hours away—but this Marley is from the same family as Emma, he's the same kind of dog as Emma, and God dropped him in our lap.

We were shopping for a Goldendoodle. They are eight hundred to a thousand dollars, and I said, "Lord, I don't really feel like that's good stewardship, so if You could just give us a dog." And the people said, "We love Marley so much, we would be happy to give him to you, if you treat him well." And they gave us his bone and his leash.

How can you not look at that little face and know that God is good? He's good! He's good! [applause] He's good! He's good! He's good! He doesn't want to strip things away from me just to strip things away from me. He doesn't want to be mean to me. He's not waiting to zap me. He's good. He's good, and you can trust Him.

I think we're afraid to believe He's enough, because we're worried He's not good. If you're worried He's not good, you just need to see my Marley boy. God's a good, good God who gave me a good dog, and I'm so thankful for it.

So God is enough because He's good, and God is good because He's enough. Let's think about it this way—I want you to write down two questions: What is it that you feel like you must have in order to live a happy life? (You don't have to write down your answers yet, because I want God to marinate this in your heart.) And who is it that you feel you absolutely cannot live without?

Your answers to those questions are probably good things—probably accomplishments, probably relationships, probably possessions, might be some creature comforts. They may be great things, but we get tripped up when we look to them to satisfy our deepest longings for God. The Bible has a word for this—Nancy mentioned it last night—it's "idol," that thing that we put on the throne of our heart.

It doesn't have to be a bad thing. It doesn't have to be a sexual relationship with a boy. It doesn't have to be a secret addiction. It doesn't have to be something that you're looking at on your computer that nobody knows about, although those things can certainly be idols. It can be a good thing that you just feel like, "God, I can't do without this."

For me, it was ministry. Ministry was my idol—it was the thing where I felt, "I don't know who I am without this. I can't be happy without this." Psalm 73:25 says, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you."

That's a pretty bold statement. "God, there's nothing on earth I desire besides You. God, there's nothing I want more than You. God, there's no one who matters more to me than You do." Fancy-shmancy theologians call this "the sufficiency of Christ." You don't need to know that, but when you hear people like John Piper talking about the sufficiency of Christ, that's what they're talking about. God is sufficient—God is enough. It's a core belief, it's a gut understanding, it's something you choose to believe.

Because there are going to be a million times in your life, and a million times in your day, when you say, "This doesn't feel good—I want to run to something else." But you have this gut belief in the face of this, "God is enough. God is sufficient. God is what I need."

God wants us to get to the place that the prophet Habakkuk got to. Habakkuk is a great little book in the Old Testament that I would recommend you read. In the beginning of the book, Habakkuk is praying, but what he's really doing is complaining. He's talking about his life and the life of the nation around him. Then Habakkuk had a seismic shift of his own.

Let's turn together to Habakkuk 3:17–19. It's a little book, it's a little hard to find, so don't be ashamed if you have to turn to your table of contents, like I'm going to. Mine's on page 1719—that might not help you. So we're going to turn to Habakkuk 3, which is basically the end of this book. We're going to read just the end.

At the beginning, Habakkuk's really wanting God to change things. He's wanting God to change his nation—which people are crying out for here today. He's wanting God to change his neighbors, he's wanting God to change his circumstances, and God doesn't really do it. God doesn't really answer Habakkuk immediately in the way that Habakkuk wants Him to.

Habakkuk gets to this point, to this gut understanding, in verse 17, where he says, "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no fruit, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stall," . . . he was talking about all of his senses of security. They may not really resonate with you.

He's saying, "Well, if the crop doesn't pan out . . ." Which you know, you and I buy our bread at the grocery store in a plastic bag, so we're not really worried about the crop. And he saying, "If the fig tree doesn't blossom . . ." and let's face it—nobody eats figs; they're nasty. So we're really not worried about that. But he's saying, "If those things that give me comfort, if those things that give me security—if that doesn't pan out . . ."

So you can fill in the blank with, "What do I need to be happy?" and "Who do I feel like I can't live without?" And what Habakkuk is saying is, "If I don't make the basketball team, if I'm not the valedictorian, if I don't get into the college I want to go to, if I don't marry this boy, if I don't get to keep this best friend forever, if my parents don't get back together, if I can't have the iPhone 5, if whatever it is . . ." That was a low blow for some of them over here. They were like, "Oh, Lord, don't take the iPhone 5! (Laughter) Whatever it is that gives you security and comfort, that's what Habakkuk is talking about here.

He's saying, if I have a seismic shift, "yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments." I don't know why it says that at the end, but it does.

So Habakkuk is saying, "No matter what changes, God, if I don't have comfort, if I don't have security, if I don't have pleasure—yet, I'm going to choose You. I'm going to take joy in You, I'm going to go back to that gut understanding that who You are is enough. No matter what, You are enough.

But I'm sure that this is not the last time Habakkuk chose that truth. Do you know what "God is not enough" is? It's a "boomerang" lie—you throw it out, you deal with it, it comes back. You throw it out, you deal with it, it comes back. You throw it out, you deal with it, it comes back. We're going to talk about another boomerang lie, later, which is pride.

So this is a tough one. It has a tendency to circle back and creep into our hearts over and over and over again. That's why we need a strategy in place, so that when we don't feel like God is enough, we can hold on to His sufficiency—that's that fancy word—we can hold on to His goodness with both hands.

So I'm going to give you three simple steps to choose that God is enough.

Number one—I want you to get in the habit of telling Him, "God, You are enough." Just tell Him, "You're enough." I love that worship song, "All I have in you is more than enough for me." "You're enough, you're enough for me. . ." Sometimes we have to say it and let our heart catch up, and that's okay.

I'm not talking about self-talk, I'm not talking about, "I'm good enough, and I'm smart enough. And gosh darn it, people like me." That's Saturday Night Live. You're too young for that. I'm too old for that. But I'm not talking about that if you chant it ten times it makes it true. But sometimes we have to choose truth, so you need to say to God, "God, You are enough. God, You are enough. God, You are enough."

"God, I don't know what this day holds, but You're enough for me."

"God, I'd really like things to work out this way, but if they do not, You are enough for me."

Guess what? If God didn't bring me a new dog just like my Emma Lou, He's still enough, and He's still good.

"So, God, no matter what You decide with this prayer request—no matter how this works out—You're enough. God, I thank You for the relationships I have—they are a blessing—but a relationship with You is enough for me. It's enough."

Get in the habit of praying Psalm 73:25: "There is nothing on earth I desire beside You, God. You're enough."

Step number two is memorize God's truth—memorize it. I'm memorizing James next month. I'd be happy to have you join me on the blog and memorize it with me. It's to get it in your heart so that when your emotions are swirling, when your hormones are swirling, when your circumstances are swirling, you say, "But I know this, from God's Word."

Here's one you can memorize—Psalm 23:1—probably a familiar passage. "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." "You're enough; You're the shepherd. There are these things over here that are pulling at me that I feel like would make me feel better, but I shall not want, because You're my shepherd."

Step number three of our strategy is to watch for "must-haves." Always be on the lookout for those things you feel like you must have in order to be okay, in order to be happy.

I'm going to give you five minutes to ask God, "What are my must-haves? What are the things I feel like I must have in order to be happy?" If something comes to your mind, I want you to write it down.

So just spend some time praying, "Lord, what are my must-haves? What are the things other than You that I feel I've got to have in order to be happy?"

Anybody want to holler out a must-have?

"Boyfriend."

"Good grades."

"Friends."

"Perfect hair."

"Money."

"A set schedule."

"A musical ability."

"A career."

"A cell phone."

"Attention." Wow

"Losing weight."

"Cute clothes."

"Mountain-top experiences." Oooh.

"Sleep." We kind of do need sleep. But we don't get to sleep at True Woman. I think next year they should build some sleep in—that might help.

"Meet my dad."

"Like-ability."

Father God, we just pray that You would continue to expose those things that we look to in order to be enough. And, Lord, would just You anchor our hearts today. Would this be a day where we were changed in the fact that we chose this day that no matter what, come what may, God is enough? Would You give us the ability to just hold on to Your sufficiency, for dear life, from this point on?

And would You also give us a really yummy lunch? In Your name, I pray. Amen.