The Jews sing Dayenu each year at Passover. It would have been enough. It would have been enough if God had delivered them from Egypt and not destroyed their enemies. It would have been enough if He had given them the Torah but not the temple.

Messianic Jews add one more verse: It all would have been enough but you also gave us Jesus. 

And only Jesus would have been far beyond more than enough but my heart faints when I think of His goodness, His daily blessings, the wonder that it is to be a child of God. He gave us His only Son. He didn’t have to, but He did. The most incredible gift this entire universe has ever witnessed; God under the law to redeem us from the curse of the law. 

It would have been enough. 

It would have been sufficient to just bask for the rest of our lives in the joy that Jesus died for me. 

But it wasn’t enough for God. 

He rescued us and washed us and redeemed us and justified us. He adopted us and made us His very own. He loves us and comforts us and guides us. He heals us and binds us and raises us up. Spiritual delights beyond comprehension, poured into our souls every hour by a good, good God. 

It would have been enough to be saved and blessed. 

But it wasn’t enough for God. 

He gives us homes and families and friends and electricity and health. He feeds us three times a day and clothes us abundantly and sends His angels to camp about us for safety. Our daily load of benefits, as the psalmist says. 

He didn’t have to give us all these things. I cannot understand the deep love of our God, who from the inaccesible light of heaven, deigns to reach down and turn on the electrical lights in a little house in a little village in a forgotten corner of a 3rd world country. How he knows, how he cares! He didn’t have to love us! Never had to care! That is the wonder of the true God. The fabricated gods of man are freakishly just like themselves. Jealous and angry, petty and cheap. Not the God of heaven.

 It would have been enough to be saved and blessed and have our earthly necessities relieved. 

But it still wasn’t enough for God. 

He has gifted us His word in 66 incredible books, pages filled with instruction and correction, comfort and joy. He shines light on our path, drawing near as a Father speaking comfortably with his child. He makes Himself understandable, He draws us in closer and closer, filling our minds and souls with the Bread of life so that we are satisfied fully in Him, so that we are more and more like His own, precious Son.

It would have been enough to be saved and blessed. To have our necessities relieved. A Bible to read. 

It still isn’t enough for God. 

Time would fail to tell of everything He is. Everything He has done. Everything He will do. How He moves kings and governors to do His bidding. How He causes the sun to rise every single morning, how He brings the rains and opens the seed and sprouts little baby corn plants to the joy and delight of a 10 year old farmer. 

Have you ever begun to doubt the goodness of God?  Watching the gravediggers shovel dirt over a tiny coffin?  Being shunned unrighteously for years and years and years? Years of labor seemingly fruitless?  Unfavorable doctor report? A war at your backdoor? A rapidly disintegrating world culture, rendering homage to the evil one so openly that even believers are sucked into the vortex? 

If He had only given us Jesus, it would have been enough. 

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O Source of All Good, 

What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts, Thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,  my Redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute, His self-emptying incomprehensible, His infinity of love beyond the heart’s grasp.  Herein is wonder of wonders: He came below to raise me above, Was born like me that I might become like Him.

….

Valley of Vision, pg 28