It's Not My Strength: When Inadequacy Meets His Sufficiency
"For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." — Philippians 2:13 (ESV)
We naturally gravitate toward what makes us feel capable. The conversations we know how to navigate, the tasks we're confident we can complete, and the environments where we feel we belong. That pull feels safe — and in many ways, it is. But the opposite is also true: we naturally drift away from the places where we feel inadequate. The relationships that stretch us, the callings that intimidate us, and the opportunities that feel beyond our capability or capacity.
The problem is that some of those places are precisely where God invites us to go.
Think about it. Has there been a conversation you've avoided because you didn't know what to say? A relationship you've kept at arm's length because something about it made you feel unqualified? A ministry or calling you've dismissed — not because God hasn't stirred it in you, but because you've measured it against your own abilities and come up short?
That's the gravitational pull of self-reliance, and it's subtle. It doesn't always look like pride — sometimes it looks like caution, wisdom, or humility. But beneath it lies a quiet belief that if we don't have what it takes, it can't be done.
Paul dismantles that belief in Philippians 2:13. God is the one working in you — not just the ability, but the desire itself. Both the "will" and the "work" come from Him. Paul reinforces this in 2 Corinthians 3:5: "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" (ESV).
Your sufficiency was never the point. His is.
When we learn to live with God at the center — relying on His strength within us rather than our own — we stop measuring opportunities by our capacity and start measuring them by His. That requires daily connection, daily submission, and daily awareness of where we're drifting toward comfort rather than obedience.
God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called — not by making you feel ready, but by working through you even as you still feel inadequate.
Big Idea
We naturally gravitate toward what makes us feel capable and away from what leaves us feeling inadequate. Yet God's sufficiency isn't limited by ours. When He calls you to something, He provides both the desire and the ability — your job is to stop measuring the call against your own strength and to start trusting His.
Questions to Ponder
Can you identify a pattern in your life of avoiding certain experiences or challenges because you felt inadequate or unqualified? What do you tell yourself when that happens and you choose to avoid? What excuse do you give yourself? How might trusting in the Lord and His sufficiency have stretched and strengthened you if you had taken on that experience or challenge? What might God be trying to teach or show you right now?
Application
Ask the Lord to reveal one area where you've been holding back because you feel inadequate. It might be a conversation, a relationship, a calling, or an act of obedience you've been putting off. Then bring Philippians 2:13 to that area: God is the one working in you — both the desire and the ability. Step into it this week, not because you feel ready, but because He is sufficient where you are not.
Before the Lord — a daily devotional by Blake S. Crawford. Read more and subscribe free at blakescrawford.com/before-the-lord.