Learning to Soar: Trusting Christ Alone in Every Season
From Burden to Flight: The Sufficiency of Christ
I’m walking through a difficult season right now—financially, physically, and within my family. For a long time, I was afraid to admit it. I could already hear the unspoken question in people’s minds: “If God loves you, where is He now?”
It wasn’t that I cared about what they thought of me—but I cared deeply about what they might come to believe about God. But I’ve realized something important: what does my state have to do with God? Why should anyone blame Him for the mistakes I’ve made? My struggles are the natural consequences of my choices.
I spent much of my life apart from Him, rebelling, lost in drugs and alcohol. Even since turning to God, I’ve made many poor decisions. And yet, by His grace, I’m still here. I’m alive, learning, and growing—and for that, I am truly blessed.
This leads me to reflect on the sufficiency of Christ, as stated in Colossians 2:9-10. Too often, we tie Christ’s sufficiency to the security of our surroundings—to calm seas, stable finances, or circumstances going our way. When we think like this, He becomes less our life and more our insurance policy.
This is why preachers who promise prosperity, a better life, or material gain are so appealing—they feed into our desire to depend on something outside of Christ. The truth is, if we rely on Jesus plus anything else, we are deceiving ourselves. The Bible teaches that all we truly need is Christ.
Consider it this way: if a preacher says we need something more than Jesus, they are essentially saying He is not enough. They are teaching that the temporary—wealth, comfort, tools, or circumstances—must sustain Him and sustain us.
Imagine being lost in a mountain, uncertain how long you’ll be there. Would you rather follow someone who survived only because of luxury, gadgets, and tools that can fail, or someone who can survive with the bare minimum and still find the way out? Christ is the One who can sustain us in every season, even when all else fails.
"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" — Matthew 6:26
Jesus promised that if we follow Him, obey Him, and work for His kingdom, He will provide. This is the heart of Matthew 6:33: if we seek Him first, He will take care of the rest. When we trust in this, we can be like the birds—soaring on the wings of God, free from worry, and able to enjoy life because He is our rock and sustainer.
Remember, God has promised to give us what we need—and sometimes that means not giving us more than we need. In His timing and in His sovereignty, He knows exactly how much is enough.
He’s teaching us to depend on Him, not to fall back into thinking we need Him plus something else.
That’s why He told the Israelites not to store up the leftover bread. It’s why Jacob was left with a limp, and why Paul was given a thorn—to remind them, and us, not to place our trust in anything but Him.
The danger of thinking we need Christ plus something is that “something” becomes baggage. It weighs us down, obscures our view of Christ, and keeps us from fully experiencing His sufficiency. We end up like birds clinging to the nest, unable to soar.
The truth is, our relationship with God will never reach the Heavens if we hold onto that belief. But when we let go and trust Christ alone, we take flight with Him. As He guides and teaches us, we begin to reflect His character, becoming a living testimony of God’s glory for the world to see.
The sufficiency of Christ means that Jesus is enough to hold me in every season—through good times, bad times, storms, and suffering. And if I come to truly know this, then I can trust that He will carry me all the way—even through death—into Heaven.
It’s a struggle to leave the nest, and sometimes God has to give us a few gentle pushes—but it’s still hard. It feels difficult because we look out at the open sky without the comfort of the nest, and it can be scary to take flight.
But that’s not where our focus should be. Instead, our eyes should be on Jesus—the One who soars all the way to the Kingdom.
The real question we have to ask ourselves is whether we’re willing to let go of the weight we’re carrying and rise with Him today.
God help us.
