Forrest Gump is a classic movie. It’s chock-full of little nuggets of wisdom. When this topic of enough popped in my mind, I immediately thought of the scene in Forrest Gump when Forrest quits running. At this point in the movie, Forrest has been running for three years, two months, 14 days and 6 hours. He stops, turns around to his followers and says, “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go home now.” As the crowd parts for him to go home, one follower shouts, “Now, what are we supposed to do?”
I don’t want to be like Forrest Gump. I don’t want to end up dog-tired with a beard spanning the length of my belly when I defeatedly say. “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go home now.” The problem I see in today’s world is we live in the continual mentality that we need more. Lines get blurred and there’s no longer a cut off. All we need is a little more and we will finally secure happiness. But we end up resembling a horse chasing a carrot on a stick that’s out of our reach. The more we reach for it the further away it gets. We end up exhausting ourself in our futile attempts to gain that must-have item. What’s the carrot on the end of your stick? For me it’s time. I used to think I didn’t have enough time and then I realized Jesus had enough hours in the day to accomplish everything he was sent to do and that means I need to take a look at my calendar and decide how to use my time wisely. I started protecting my time. Because if I don’t put value on my time, nobody else will either. Some need more followers. More money. More clothes. More attention. More cars. More energy. More sex. More. More. More. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme. We have an insatiable appetite for more. We don’t have a lid on our lives and allow greed to be our guide. A lid lets us know when we’ve reached our limit. When we’ve hit the “enough” mark. My girl Tabitha taught me a little bit about the importance of knowing when to say, “I’ve had enough.”
“In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha who was always doing good and helping the poor. About that time she became sick and died.” Acts 9:36
When we try to keep up with the world we forget to focus on the upkeep we need. I’m over here reading the first sentence and just blown away by Tabitha. Look at her go. She does it ALL! Always doing good. Always helping the poor. She is going to get to heaven and hear that deeply desired, “Well done my good and faithful servant” FOR SURE. Man, I want to be like Tabitha. This girl is obviously living her life for the Lord and getting all the accolades from those around her. But then I read the second sentence that says, “About that time she became sick and died.” Well, that escalated quickly. Tabitha had awesome intentions no doubt, but could being overworked and not taking time to take care of herself be the reason she became sick and died? Could being so concerned with the welfare of those around her wear her down physically?
I see myself in Tabitha. I am the type of girl that would bend over backwards, go to the end of the earth and drop everything to come to the rescue in a moment’s notice. We need Tabithas in the world. They are the Mother Teresas of today. They are the proud PTA parents. They are the bake sale queens. They are the snack-bringing soccer moms. They are plagued with the disease to please. That’s me to a T, until this most recent season started shifting my perspective. I learned the hard way (from being sick for three months) that if I neglect taking care of myself it’s impossible to properly take care of anybody else. There’s a reason if you’re a passenger on a plane they ask you to put on your oxygen mask first before helping the person sitting next to you. You can’t give out what you haven’t taken in. If you haven’t taken in forgiveness, you can’t give it out. If you haven’t breathed in God’s grace, you can’t exhale it on others. If you try to give what you don’t have you end up hurting yourself and possibly others along the way. Spreading myself too thin will stretch me like a rubber band until one day I SNAP and have a Britney Spears of 2007 meltdown.
I just read an article recently where Chris Pratt was the topic – cue swooning ladies now. I don’t know much about him, but from what I understand he is climbing the Hollywood ladder and rising to the top. We see celebrities crumble under the weight of fame and fortune. We see celebrities compromise anything and everything to get to the top. That’s not the case for Chris Pratt. Because of his faith and respect to his family he refuses to participate in any on-screen sex scene. This is a man who went into the business knowing what his “enough” was. If he did not know where to draw the line, the line would continue to be pushed until he found himself naked in a sex scene wondering how this happened and angry with himself for allowing a boundary to be crossed. He might possibly still feel the weight of fame attempt to break him, but Pratt taught me it’s important to draw that “enough” line in the sand and stand firm.
“Better one hand with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 4:6
Sometimes less is more. Sometimes knowing that you could have two fistfuls of fame and fortune doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes one handful is enough. Sometimes two handfuls makes you feel you are chasing the wind or scrambling for that shiny object at the end of a stick. Sometimes two handfuls sets us up for a life of always straining, but never obtaining.
I tend to find myself sucked into a project, person or problem that I can’t find my way out. I didn’t take time to look at the big picture and ask God, “If I am supposed to say yes, how will I know when it’s enough? How do I enter something with the end goal in mind?” So, what is my enough? What should be my one handful? How do I make sure I’m not biting off more than I can chew or setting myself up to be stretched too thin? These are the questions I’m left to contemplate as I dive deeper into this idea of enough. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.