Welcome back to another episode of The Gospel According To, September Edition, where we connect our favorite mental-health-improving songs, books, and other lovelies with Biblical truth. This week’s focus is “You Are Enough” by sleeping At Last, which goes alongwith the theme of the netflix show Anne With an E. If you’re a fan of either of these, or if you want to support your mental and emotional health, read on for encouragement and inspiration. Enjoy!
Fandom: “You Are Enough” by Sleeping At Last and Anne With an E by Netlix
Nugget: You are enough. God has given you everything you need to live a Godly life that pleases Him, and also for basic existence as a human. You are already chosen, holy, and royal in His sight because when He looks at you, He sees Christ. You are enough because you aren’t defined by who you are, but by who He is and who He has made you to be. You are enough, you are enough, you are enough, you are enough.
The Horizontal View: Self-Worth From Ourselves
One of the over-arching themes of the Anne With An E series is how Anne comes to accept that she is enough. She goes from begging and pleading with Matthew and Marilla to keep her, to living in fear that they will giver her away, to finally accepting that they have made her a part of their family. In the Netflix series, Anne also does a phenomenal job of encouraging and building up her friends in their unique identities. She accepts them for who they are and constantly speaks life to them. The words she gives inspire her friends to reach their full potential, withstand hardships, and stand up for what they believe in.
And this is only the words of one girl who is far from perfect and has a human (and therefore flawed) view of what is good and perfect and right and enough. What would happen if someone who is good and perfect and right said we’re enough?
The Vertical View: In Christ, God says we are enough.
Let’s turn this already-beautiful-encouraging-and-inspiring idea around for a moment and look from a vertical, or God-to-humans, point of view.
How many times have I wondered if I am enough in God’s eyes! Enough for Him to accept me as His child, into His Kingdom, and as His representative to the world. Enough for Him to stay with me and keep loving me, even when I don’t believe I am loved. But what does He say about it?
You are enough because God has given you all that you need.
I will never be enough on my own. But because of His great love for me, God chose to make me enough by sending His Son to die for me. When I proclaimed Christ as Lord of my life, God stopped viewing me as sinful and separated from Him and started seeing me as whole, pure, and righteous instead. When you accept Christ, God doesn’t just see you as though you never sinned. He sees you as though you had always obeyed. And in Christ, through the Holy spirit, God gives us everything we need to please Him: “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 CSB Not only that, but He also gives us everything we need to make it through each day.
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalm 23:1
You are enough because you aren’t defined by who you say you are, but who God says you are.
One of the best lines from the song ‘You Are Enough” talks about the shadows that cling to us even as we grow up: When we grew up, our shadows grew up too/ but they’re just old ghosts we grew attached to/ the tragic flaw is that they hide the truth… let our shadows fall away like dust. The shadows that the singer describes definitely represent the things we heard, experienced, and came to believe about ourselves as children that still haunt us to this day. I for one have many of those. Letting our shadows fall away then becomes letting go of these beliefs and experiences so that we can become our truest and most confident selves. That’s the type of affirmation that Anne With An E promotes.
But there is also another interpretation of this line, one that’s a bit harder to explain, but also has much more spiritual depth to it. In this view, the ‘shadows” that fall away become symbolic of our own definitions of ourselves– good or bad, positive or negative, everything that isn’t rooted in scripture and subject to Christ– as we deny ourselves in order to become like Him. That doesn’t mean that every aspect of my personality disappears completely, as God definitely created me the way He did for a reason. It means that every bit of my personality becomes less important than becoming like Christ. Things like being an introvert, or unartistic, or bad at some things and good at others, things that might keep me from obeying God’s Word and giving 100% of myself to Him will slowly fall away, because ultimately 1) It’s fallen from the beginning (Gen. 8:21, Romans 3:23, Ephesians 2:1-3) and 2) I don’t need those things anymore because Christ has given me a new identity (1 Peter 2:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:8-10).
I am enough because the shadow I cast by giving any kind of weight to my own definition of myself is blotted out by the all-consuming light of God’s love for me. In a room filled with light, there are no shadows, not even those cast by objects or people who are in the room. Let Christ’s definition of you become so all-consuming that your own definition of yourself becomes secondary or even irrelevant.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” 1 John 3:1
Period!
Conclusion: choosing to believe I am enough.
I’d like to circle back for a second to the self-affirming, just-be-yourself kind of encouragement that is so prevalent in the world today, and in the Anne With An E series. This is the type of affirmation that feels good, but I wonder if it has any real weight or lasting effect. Because my definition of myself changes on a daily or momentary basis. I can go from top-of-the-world, I’ve-got-this-and-everything-is-awesome to what-am-I-doing-here, why-am-I-like-this in a startlingly short amount of time. If my opinion of whether I am enough is based entirely on my own knowledge or judgement of myself, or even on someone else’s words to me, it stands on shaky ground. My emotions, circumstances, and outside influences can all cause my identity to crumble at any moment.
That’s why we need God, and we need His Word, as our foundation. No matter how many times you read it, or even how many versions you read it in, the Word of God will never change. And the Word of God is the clearest reflection of God’s heart and opinion of us that we have, so by extension, His opinion of us will never change either. He will always see us as enough. He will always choose us and call us by name. And He will never withdraw His steadfast love or His offering of peace from us. Regardless of what we believe about ourselves, this truth will never change.
The difficult thing is choosing to believe that, regardless of my own feelings or opinions at the present moment, I am still enough. Even if I just completely failed an important assignment, or let someone I care about down in a big way, or just didn’t accomplish what I wanted to today because I was too busy watching Netflix, I am still enough. Believing this means that my own will is no longer superior. It’s the hardest decision to make, and I have to fight for it every day, but it leads to a more abundant life and a stronger, steadier foundation. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough, I am enough, I am enough.
And if I am enough, that means you are too.
You are enough. You are enough. You are enough. You are enough, you are enough, you are enough.
“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” 1 John 3:19-20 ESV
I hope you were enocuraged by this post as I was by writing it. Let’s encourage one another as much as we can with the knowledge of the one who called us to walk in newness of life.
Happy fangirling!
Let’s connect! Subscribe to email updates below so you never miss a new post from me 💖
[…] This is another absolutely stunning piece of music that I adore. Take the overall theme of the Anne with an E series on Netflix and you have the sound and the lyrics of this song. The instrumentals are so soothing, with a staccato piano line woven between violins and other soft instruments. And the lyrics… Half the song is just “you’re enough, you’re enough, you’re enough” over and over again, but it’s SOO GOOD!! Click here to read the full post on this song! […]
[…] Here’s a post you’ll love about the beauty behind this uplifting song 💖 […]
[…] You Are Enough – Sleeping At Last […]