Enough Already

I'm signed up to receive in my inbox an Enneathought every morning. If you don't know the Enneagram (or want to learn more about it), go here. I have gained so much clarity and self-knowledge from learning my Enneagram type--a seven, with a six-wing by the way! 

The Enneagram is a kind of personality test. It is a helpful tool to deepen understanding of one's impulses and behaviors, though inherently it is limited to only certain facets of our being (i.e. - our personality, or ego). No such test can describe our deepest Self, our souls, who we are in God/Christ/Spirit.

All prefacing aside, this was my Enneathought the other day:  "I now affirm that there will be enough for me of whatever I need."

Boom.

Because they are tailored to my particular personality type, my Enneathoughts have a way of cutting through all of my neuroses, tendencies, anxieties, fears, and internal commentary, and stating the truth I need to hear (and state myself).

So, this affirmation has become my prayer the last few days.

I now affirm that there will be enough for me of whatever I need.

Said another way, I already have all that I need.

But it's so hard to believe this, when all throughout the day I am being told otherwise. I am being convinced that I need all the distractions so readily available to me at any given moment.

I am buying into the belief that who I am at the present moment is not quite enough. I have to get a little more, acquire more possessions, more facts, more insight. I have to master a technique, in order to control the outcome. I must do this and do that. I leave home in order to search for the meaning and stuff of life. I do until all the doing is done. Then, if I have time and strength and patience for it, I can rest and be.

Though sometimes I convince myself that I am the worst offender, I can't believe I am alone in this. We are products of such a culture, whether we are aware of it or not. 

My personality gets hooked on this stuff. My mind performs the rat race with astonishing speed and agility.

But I am more than my personality, more than my Enneagram type. I am more than my mind performing these tasks. 

I am a heart. 

I am a soul. 

God is in me. 

I have enough. 

I am enough.

Can I convince myself of this truth?

Do I really believe that I am enough? Not that I am self-sufficient (another deception handed to us), but that I have enough within me?

Can I go beyond the point of convincing and believing to arrive at faith and trust? Trust that God is seeking me; faith that God has found me; trust that I need not leave home to find what I have been persuaded is necessary; faith that all I have ever needed or will ever need is already mine in God.

As Jesus shared with Martha, "There is need of only one thing." 

Martha is busy being hospitable--milling about cooking and cleaning, making a clean space for her guest. On the outside at least. 

But Mary has shown another kind of hospitality--inner hospitality. By sitting at Jesus' feet (and not helping her sister with the chores), Mary has demonstrated what it means to create a space for God in the home of her heart.

Poor Martha. I am just like her. I am convinced that my doing is of utmost importance. That, once the doing is done, I can rest and be. 

Can I make the switch--from doing to being first? To see that what is truly necessary, what is required of me, is my heart. 

Can I come to trust that the one necessary thing is already within me? That I don't have to go out looking for it? That I don't have to acquire it? That I don't have to perform it in a certain (perfect) way?

There is need of only one thing. 

I already have all that I need.

There will be enough.

There is enough.

Thanks be to God.