Listening for Answers to the Questions Every Teenager Is AskingSample

Day Four

You Are Enough

Scripture: Genesis 1:27; John 6:1-15

What helps teenagers let go of the lies that they should be defined by others, don’t measure up, and are no more than their personal brand? 

Our research and interview team landed on one theologically rich word that helps young people say a stronger “Yes” to Jesus every day. 

Enough.

In an era that fears and often expects scarcity, Jesus offers abundance. 

While we have a front-row seat to Jesus’ abundance throughout the Gospels, one passage, in particular, has helped me (Kara) rest my identity in God’s ENOUGH-ness. 

The setting is springtime, shortly before the Passover, and having seen “the signs he had performed by healing the sick” (v. 2), a large crowd pursues Jesus near the Sea of Galilee.

Concerned about the crowd’s hunger, Jesus the healer now becomes Jesus the host. 

Bringing forward a young person with five (small) barley loaves and two (likely also small) fish, Andrew asks, “But how far will they go among so many?” (v. 9). 

Despite the meager available protein and carbs, Jesus gives thanks and starts distributing bread and fish to the ten to fifteen thousand gathered.

Jesus offers not just a bite. Not merely a snack. But so much bread and fish that each crowd member receives “as much as they wanted” (v. 11). 

Jesus could have provided without working through what the disciples and young person scrounged up. But Jesus chooses to work through his followers. Then and now, Jesus makes what we have, and who we are, ENOUGH. Because we were made in the image of God, Jesus can turn our not-enough into ENOUGH. 

Here’s more good news for teenagers across history: Jesus makes what a young person offers more than ENOUGH. We don’t know from the text if it’s a boy or a girl or even their age, but we do know that Jesus works through them. In the presence of Jesus, this young person was affirmed as someone worthy of being there that day. Affirmed as a person with dignity and value. Affirmed as a funnel through which the gifts of the Holy Spirit could reach others. Someone who was truly ENOUGH. It’s just as true now as it was in the first century: Jesus’ generosity flows through a young person and spreads to all generations. 

What prayer would you like to offer as you help young people, as well as yourself, understand that God makes us ENOUGH?