Enough is Enough

One day Marcus and J.R., two brothers, were watching a football game.  They were at Marcus' house which was the eldest brother.  Marcus had a wonderfully large plasma screen television bestowing upon him the duty of sharing all of its glory with all his die hard sports comrades. As they were watching the game, they began having a conversation about J.R.'s trouble in school.  See J.R. had a hot head, easily angered at the slightest things.  Marcus tells J.R. that he is too hot headed to develop good relationships with people. Marcus continues to say, "You should be more like me. It takes someone repeatedly and intentionally doing enough stupid stuff to me before I pop off at someone."  Hearing this J.R. sits quietly planning the adequate amount of repeatedly and intentionally stupid stuff he could do to make Marcus upset. 

J.R. began doing little things such as changing the channel at random in the middle of the game causing Marcus to miss big plays. J.R. began purposefully dropping large crumbs of potato chips all over the house and stepping on them as if he didn't see them making sure they were nice a smashed into the carpet.  He then began to get cups of soda and tip them over enough so that they would spill.  Marcus begins to get annoyed at the clumsiness of his little brother.  Then, there was the straw that finally broke the camels back. J.R. filled a cup of soda and placed it on the coffee table in front of the TV. J.R. then, picks up his legs as if he is going to cross them and knocks the entire cup of soda off the coffee table as soda spills onto Marcus' plasma screen TV.  Marcus jumps off the couch in a rage and finally confronts his brother. "Enough is enough! What is wrong with you? You are so clumsy! You have to be more careful!" J.R. looks at Marcus with an apathetic look, takes out a pad, and begins to write.  This sends Marcus over the top. "What are you doing?" Marcus screams taking the pad out of J.R.'s hands.  J.R. replies ever so gently, "I was just assessing the adequate amount of repeatedly, intentional, stupid stuff it would take to meet your standard of measure for enough repeatedly, intentional, stupid stuff. 35 crunched up chips in the carpet, 20 soda spills, and knocking over one cup of soda onto your plasma screen is sufficient enough to satisfy your need to be angry."

While J.R.'s methods may not be totally orthodox for his experiment, his quest to find what "enough" was for his brother brings out some points worth noticing.  As J.R. discovered, "enough" is a sufficient and adequate amount of something to satisfy something else.  In the Marcus' case, we found 35 crunched up chips in the carpet, 20 soda spills, and knocking over one cup of soda onto your plasma screen is sufficient enough to satisfy his need to be angry. Now, forget the entire story. The only thing I really want you to extract from this is the principle of "enough."

Do you know what is "enough" a sufficient and adequate amount of something to satisfy something in your life? It is important that we look at this principle of "enough" in reference to our lives. All human beings, everyday all day, do things to satisfy some kind a craving. Whether it's a burger to satisfy their hunger, or money to have bills paid, everyone has a craving for something and enact strategies and plans to satisfy their craving. What about the indefinable craving though? What about that craving in life that you can't pin point? You know that if you could satisfy this unexplainable craving that it would fulfill you and bring you to a place of contentment.  So you began to try "enough" of any and everything to fill the craving.  For the drug addict, they try drugs. And it actually seemed that it was the drugs that satisfied their craving until they went to use them again and found the satisfaction was fleeting. So they figured they didn't have "enough" drugs to satisfy the need. So what do they do? Of course, consume more drugs.  What about the person who though they satisfied their craving by eating until the next time they had to consume more and more food to fill that they consumed "enough" to get them back to their happy place.

There are many more examples: How much more make-up will you put on your face for it to be "enough" to make you feel beautiful?  How many more people will you need to bully to be "enough" to compensate for your self-esteem issues?  How many more guys will you have to sleep with to be "enough" to make you feel wanted? Catch my drift.  The answer is neither original nor shocking. Nothing on this earth will be "enough" to satisfy the unexplainable craving, neither will it even help you define your unexplained craving, but "ENOUGH is enough." "ENOUGH" is, has been, and always will be a limitless GOD whose powered is exercised without boundary.  Until we really step out on faith and believe that GOD is enough to sustain life, we will blindly give ourselves to destruction of attempts to satisfy our craving for "enough."  No matter where you are in life, anything you come up with will never match up, live up to, or be "enough" to satisfy your need for GOD.  Paul experienced this when the LORD gave him a thorn in his flesh to keep him from becoming proud.  About this thorn Paul sought GOD three separate times to do something to satisfy his need for peace and contentment.  Paul says, "Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.⁹ Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.¹⁰ That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Cor 12:8-10 (NLT) The next time your unexplainable craving for "enough" of something captivates you, see it as a hunger pain for GOD. It like your souls way of reminding you it's time to fill up on GOD.

PEOPLE, WE MUST DROP MATERIALSIM AND OTHER ATTEMPTED REPLACEMENTS FOR GOD!  REALIZE THAT HE IS THE ONLY REMEDY FOR "ENOUGH!" AS A MATTER OF FACT, HE HAS TO BE MORE THAN ENOUGH TO CONTINUE TO SUPPLY US WITH ENOUGH AND BE ENOUGH TO US!  "ENOUGH (GOD)" is enough!

Chris Cross