The notes of the song started and the congregants stood up, excited to begin worship with one of their favorites. I dutifully obliged. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling of guilt that came every time I heard this song.
All of You is more than enough for all of me, we began. As I looked around the auditorium, fellow believers belted out the lyrics— eyes squeezed shut and arms lifted high. Couples held each other close as they repeated the chorus, now in its third run. On stage the band was really getting into it. Our worship leader was clearly on tonight, and the new drummer was nailing every beat. As for me, I stood alone and started to again dwell on the words that came off my lips with such an intimate familiarity.
Is God really more than enough for me? I asked myself. Is He even supposed to be? Because I’m not feeling it. We were now on the fourth and final repetition of the song. It was a good thing; I couldn’t take much more. In fact, I’d already had “more than enough,” so I left the building. In the background I could hear the band singing the first verse of “Awesome God.”
I drove in the pouring rain to the nearby hill where I often find myself pondering life, especially life as a single, twentysomething male who has everything – and everything to offer – except someone to share it with. As I sat in the dark cabin of my sports car, big drops of rain pounding the windshield, I couldn’t help but think about those lyrics. They haunted me. All of You is more than enough for all of me / For every thirst and need, You satisfy me with Your love / And all I have in You is more than enough.
I’d sung those words what seemed like a million times. And I felt guiltier each time I did. I needed something more. I needed someone more. “Someone” whom I was counting on God to have provided by this stage of my life. But she was nowhere to be found. And every time I thought I had found her, it ended in heartbreak. Time after time I had tried to make the words of that song fit my life. I trusted God to satisfy my every need, but this one I still hungered for.
This battle was nothing new. Years ago – maybe it was soon after that song debuted – I argued that we humans needed more than just God. Even more than that, God knew we needed more than Him because He had in fact created man that way. My reasoning for this came from the biography of another man. He wasn’t just any man. He was the very first man. Adam lived in utopia and he literally had the world at his fingertips. But more than the world and everything in it, he had what was likely the closest relationship to God there has ever been. The Bible says God literally talked with Adam. If that’s not intimacy with the Creator of the universe, I don’t know what is.
Yet Adam was not satisfied. He had it all, but he needed one more thing to be satisfied, to be complete. He had Him, but he needed her. This wasn’t a surprise to God. In fact, He knew this and He provided her.
I pondered this for a long time. The B-side of Moby’s Play provided the evening’s quiet soundtrack. I was angry, confused and hurt. I was sick of this scenario playing out in my head once again. I rarely received answers. Then I realized something. As I sat in the car that night, the clouds eventually began to clear, and so did my mind. Just because God hadn’t provided her didn’t mean He wouldn’t. And just because He hadn’t satisfied this area of my life – however big it might be – didn’t mean that He was oblivious to it. I realized that God knew my desires, just as He knew Adam’s. Maybe God wanted me to not only depend on Him for this gift, but, as part of faith-building, to continue to depend on Him even at my lowest points – during the times and seasons in my life in which the last thing I wanted to do was depend on Him. Maybe this was part of the exercise that would help me become the man He wanted – and the one she needed.
I drove away to an empty house once again. Did I meet her that night? No. Would I meet her the next day or in the next week, month, year or decade? I had no idea. But I had a renewed hope that someday God would fulfill this desire in my life. And for me, that was more than enough.
[Matt Degen resides in Southern California. When he isn’t pondering singlehood, he is enjoying sun, surf and music in The O.C.]