Fullness

I often live my life from a position of lack. I find myself thinking about what I don’t have, what I haven’t done, what I should have done better.

But those of us who are in Christ have no business living in lack, because God is a God of fullness, a truth illuminated in the first two chapters of Colossians. First we learn that God had all His fullness dwell in Christ (1:19), and then Paul talks about presenting the Word of God to the Colossians in all its fullness (1:25). Paul says again in 2:9 that in Christ, all the fullness of  Deity lives in bodily form. Jesus has fullness. The Word of God has fullness. God Himself has fullness. All of that makes sense to me.

But then Paul says, “You have been given fullness in Christ.” (2:10) When I read it, it was one of those “guy says wrong thing in the bar and the record playing on the jukebox goes sccrrrriitch while everything stops” kind of moments. “I have been given fullness in Christ?” scccrrriiitch

I shouldn’t have been so surprised – Paul prays for the Ephesians to be filled to the measure of the fullness of God and says that maturity in Christ entails our attaining the full measure of the fullness of Christ. John 1:16 says that from the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another.

This truth of fullness has been quietly reshaping my outlook on what I need to be OK. When my kids are misbehaving, and I feel a lack of control, I have been given fullness. When the latest flashy gadget outpaces my spending budget, I have been given fullness. When my basement floods and the carpet has to go, I have been given fullness. When I feel forgotten or insignificant, I have been  given fullness. When I am at the end of my strength and one more need presents itself, I have been given fullness.

Fullness of life, of joy, of peace, of hope. Fullness is mine already.