{"id":2537,"date":"2026-06-10T14:55:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2026-06-10T14:55:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:55:47","slug":"more-than-enough-davids-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/more-than-enough-davids-story\/","title":{"rendered":"More than enough – David’s story"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

David always liked Sunday School.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

His teacher really cared for every boy and girl in the class. She talked about Jesus as the best friend you could ever have. David could hardly wait for each Sunday. But this week all the kids were in the big church room with adults.<\/p>\r\n

In the car on the way home, David stared out the window. He looked like he had just lost his best friend. Mom turned around to see why he was so quiet. Usually David couldn’t stop talking about what he had learned at that week’s Sunday School lesson.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

“What’s bothering you, David?”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just can’t figure it out.”
“Figure what out?”

“What I’m supposed to do. My Sunday School teacher tells us every week that Jesus, as our best friend, is more than enough<\/strong> to keep me strong when I feel weak, to encourage me when I think I’ve done something wrong, to be there with me no matter what. But I didn’t feel that way when I listened to the sermon today in the big church.”

“What do you mean?”
“The pastor kept saying that God needed more from me, that I have to work harder to make God happy. How am I supposed to do that?”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Mom turned to Dad with a look of silent sorrow. Their eyes met as both realized their own struggles were now rising in their only child. They had been talking for a while about how difficult it was to sit under sermon after sermon that made them feel inadequate. They respected their pastor but were confused about what the Bible and their faith expected of them.<\/p>\r\n

It seemed that a good and godly life was always a step or two or three ahead of where you are right now. You come up short no matter how hard you are trying to follow Christ. It was never enough<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A common dilemma<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The contrast between David’s Sunday School experience and the approach to sermons in that local church is all too common for conservative evangelicals. They establish a culture of ‘always need more’<\/strong> to achieve a higher level of Christ-likeness and spiritual maturity.<\/p>\r\n

Instead of building up their people with confidence in what the Spirit of God is already doing in them, such churches hold up a carousel’s brass ring that is alway just a little bit out of reach. However, I must take care not to cast the net of this critique too broadly or without awareness of context. Two thoughts here.<\/p>\r\n

First, many of the people in these churches are well-intentioned. They just carry on with the assumptions they have learned. And a popular one is to always be seeking more, often at the expense of showing the joy that should be flowing from what they already have.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Second, there is an element of ‘the poor get poorer’ in this situation. Many small churches struggle for survival. Pastors and people establish a view similar to the horse Boxer in George Orwell’s Animal Farm<\/em>. They feel the need to work harder and harder<\/strong> regardless of the lack of meaningful results. And the actual result is often a religious life lacking joy.<\/p>\r\n

Well-intentioned people who believe in the sufficiency of the gospel to meet your needs fall into a contrary mindset that builds a religion of works and constant seeking. It helps to keep the system going, and the church doors open, but at great personal and spiritual expense. Visitors don’t stay long and the faithful either age out or burn out. Life has too often shifted from enjoying Jesus to suffering for Jesus.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Other churches, many of them the mega congregations, are vibrant and growing. They nurture a culture of engaging worship, uplifting Bible teaching, and other appealing qualities that spontaneously draw people. The Christian life is presented as an exciting, life-changing adventure. Sadly, these churches are often looked down upon as ‘soft on the gospel’ by Christians with more restricted views.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So, which is it?<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Is God really the El Shaddai of the Bible, the all-sufficient one, who provides more than enough<\/strong> for all your needs and lifts you up when you fall? Or is he a chronically dissatisfied overlord and taskmaster for whom whatever you do is never enough<\/strong>? He keeps demanding more from you and majors in pointing out your mistakes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

From the church to the world<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The deficit mindset of ‘never enough’ has been a factor in driving many people out of the organized Church. Some of those men and women who left have built secular models using biblical concepts lacking in the Church. Models that impact society in dynamic ways and improve the wellbeing of individuals. Carl Rogers (1902-1987) was such a person.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Carl Rogers<\/strong>, like David, also ‘stared out the window’ as he tried to process a strict religious upbringing in an evangelical church. He couldn’t do it. Shifting to the secular world, Rogers became the father of humanistic psychology and was the founder of person-centered therapy. He replaced the role of God and Christian perspectives with a new model.<\/p>\r\n

Effective therapists could do everything that David’s Sunday School teacher said about Jesus. And history has demonstrated the strength of Rogerian ideas and practices to empower change, growth, and self-actualization in individuals.<\/p>\r\n

Rogers translated the El Shaddai of the Bible into a secular model to affirm that every person has more than enough within themselves<\/strong> to become a whole, self-actualized individual. Psychology, education, sociology, even music, have made popular the secularized but spiritual-based principles advocated by Rogers.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Contemporary songwriters<\/strong> major in self-help lyrics and spirit-moving music. Their goal is more than just to entertain. Musicians are motivated to create songs that explore identity, affirm personal strength to overcome the challenges of life, and help others do the same.<\/p>\r\n

An example is ‘More Than Enough’<\/strong> (2024) by Sarah Reeves. It offers a secular El Shaddai to the troubled soul. The song is a challenge to rise above the heartbreaks of life and expectations of other people and find, within yourself, the personal identity, the self-worth, and the healing that everyone longs for.<\/p>\r\n

Back to the Church.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Jesus said, “I came to give life – life that is full and good” (John 10.10). More than enough. That’s the message David got from his Sunday School teacher every week.<\/p>\r\n

What happens when the organized Church loses its focus on what the El Shaddai of more than enough<\/strong> means? The secular world quickly steps up to fill the gap. It reconstructs fundamental Christian values and concepts into humanist-based pathways to help people deal with the realities of life and living.<\/p>\r\n

I sometimes wonder where David is today.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David always liked Sunday School. His teacher really cared for every boy and girl in the class. She talked about Jesus as the best friend you could ever have. David could hardly wait for each Sunday. But this week all the kids were in the big church room with adults. In the car on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-spirituality-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3276,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/3276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miles2go.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}