What To Do When You Feel Like You Aren't Good Enough
Dec 15, 2025
Hi, I'm Julie Hawkes. Welcome to The Laws of Peace, where you will learn how to understand and apply God's laws in simple ways, so that you can take small steps to create big changes and miracles, and become the person you were always meant to be.
The answers are in the scriptures. Let me show you how to find them. Today's episode is called What to Do When You Feel Like You're Not Good Enough.
The law we are working on is called the Law of Divine Identity. And the Law of Divine Identity has a few parts to it. The first part is that we are beloved children of God.
That is our identity. It's not based on how the world sees us or mistakes or anything else, but it's based our worth is based on how God sees us. And it is unchangeable.
Second, when we know and accept who we are, we can act from a place of integrity, living from our core values to create a life of passion, of purpose, and of peace.
And thirdly, we must receive this divine gift and then act according to who we really are. When you understand and accept who you really are, it fundamentally changes how you feel, how you show up, and what you get in life.
However, the problem is that our identities unravel in our painful experiences. We redefine ourselves based on what other people think, on past trauma, on doing whatever it takes to feel safe, and in the process, we lose who we are.
We lose our enthusiasm for life. We forget our gifts and our talents, and we become depleted, distracted, and discouraged.
Here are some of the unhealthy ways that we define ourselves, from mistakes and failures in the past, poor choices, painful traumatic experiences, comments other people made years ago.
I remember in elementary school, the teacher getting mad at me because I sang too loud. After that, I didn't want to sing anymore.
We define ourselves by how people treat us or our image, what kind of a job we have, what success we have, what material things we have, how we look, what size we are, all of these things that don't really truly matter, and they don't really truly
matter to God. In Isaiah 43, 1 through 5, God tells us who we are. He tells us to not be afraid, and he says, You are precious in my sight. And I love that.
And there are a few more scriptures that talk about who we are. In Romans 8, 16, and 17, it says, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs.
And if heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. And then in Ephesians, it says, For we are his workmanship, created in Jesus Christ unto good works.
We need to accept and understand who we are and not base our worth on our experiences or what other people tell us. Let's go look at Enoch. I love the story of Enoch.
Enoch is the epitome of somebody who felt completely inadequate and without talents or gifts. And we're going to go to Moses chapter 6, and it starts in verse 27.
And the Lord calls Enoch and he says, Hey, I want you to be my prophet, and I want you to go out and talk to all the people, and I want you to tell them to repent.
And Enoch's response, I think, is something we can all relate to when we're asked to do something that feels scary or uncomfortable or hard or even just regular everyday life.
He said in verse 31, And when Enoch heard these words, he bowed himself before the earth and before the Lord, and he spake before the Lord saying, Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight?
I am but a lad, and all the people hate me, for I am slow of speech, wherefore am I thy servant? He's like, are you kidding me? You want me to do what?
I can't even talk. And the Lord knows who Enoch is, and he makes him some really powerful promises. Listen to the promises because they're going to matter when we get to the end of the story.
He says, And the Lord said unto Enoch, Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open my mouth and it shall be filled, and I will give the utterance for all flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good.
Do you hear him saying? He's promising to overcome all of Enoch's inadequacies. And then he continues, Say unto this people, Choose you this day to whom you will serve.
And then he said in verse 34, Behold, my spirit is upon you. Wherefore all thy words will I justify, and the mountain shall flee before you, and the river shall turn from their course, and they shall abide in me, and I in you therefore walk with me.
Are you walking with God? Are you trusting his promises? Are you believing what he tells you about yourself?
This story has such a beautiful ending, but in the middle, we're like, okay, everybody's going to live happily ever after, and it's going to be great after this. I think he's going to go out, and it's all going to go wonderfully. Yeah, no.
In verse 37 and verse 38, this is what happens to Enique. It's kind of funny, but not really because it's sad. He goes out and he starts preaching, and it says, all men were offended because of him.
Not some of the men, but all of them. He pretty much offended every single person. And then in verse 38, he's going out, and he keeps on going, he keeps on talking.
And this is what the people say about him. They say, and there is a strange thing in the land. A wild man hath come upon us.
He was right. He couldn't talk. The people didn't like him, and he was very offensive.
And yet, he chose to believe what God told him about who he was and what his mission and purpose was, and he went on. He kept going in spite of the failures. He didn't let that stop him.
Are you letting it stop you?
In Moses chapter 7, verse 13, it says, and so great was the faith of Enoch, that he led the people of God and their enemies came to battle against them, and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according
to his command, and the rivers of water were turned out of their course, and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness, and all nations feared so greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which
God had given him. He lived up to who he was, and he fulfilled his mission and purpose in life. He overcame the failures, he overcame the inadequacies, he trusted promises that God gave him.
Enoch received and accepted his identity and then acted accordingly, and he became a powerful prophet who fully lived his mission and purpose in life.
How would your life be different if you truly believed you were a beloved child of God with gifts and talent and purpose? And what if your greatest weaknesses are also linked to your greatest gifts? Something to think about.
One of my favorite talks from the last conference was by Patrick Curran, and he talked about it. It's called Receive His Gift. And it really hit home for me because I realized that I was not living up to what he was teaching.
He talked about receiving the gift of recognizing and understanding that we are beloved children of God.
And he said, to truly receive a gift, we come to value it for ourselves, put it to full use in our lives, and then remember with thankfulness the giver. Receiving a gift is not passive, but it's an intentional and meaningful process.
That goes far beyond merely opening a package. To receive is to appreciate and connect with both the gift and the heart of the giver in a way that strengthens the bonds between the giver and the receiver.
And the gift that we need to receive is that we really are God's children. The truth is breathtaking, stunning, and is not figuratively.
The reality is that we need to accept our divine identity as defined by God, not by our experiences, not by our tragedies, and not by our inadequacies.
Elder Ciaran continues, he said, I invite you to receive either for the first time or to a greater extent than ever before the magnificent realization that you truly are God's beloved child.
The Holy Spirit can bear witness to your heart that you are indeed a child of the most high.
When you welcome this majestic, listen for the promises, when you welcome this majestic reality into your very soul and feel both the comfort and the thrill of it, your entire paradigm shifts.
You can feel his love, hear his voice, and recognize his hand no matter what is happening or not happening in your life. You can redefine how you see yourself and others.
Your covenant bond with your Savior becomes even stronger through the lens of this sweet gift, and it takes on new brilliance, beauty, and hope.
Please will you pray to understand if you are truly receiving this transformative knowledge deep in your soul? Will you please accept the gift?
Will you do so more deeply, more freely, and more abundantly than you ever have before and in so doing be showered with all the other gifts that come with it? End quote.
When I heard this talk, I realized that I was missing something important, and I got down on my knees and I asked the Lord to help me to see him as my father, and to see him as somebody who was the giver of the good gifts, and to see myself as a
daughter of God, and it was a profound experience for me that filled me with peace. I'd like to end with a story.
Years and years and years ago, I was called to teach Sunday school in our ward in my church, and it's the gospel doctrine teacher, and I remember sitting in the bishop's office and sitting next to my husband and the bishop saying, We want you to be
the gospel doctrine teacher, and I was completely dumbfounded. I just sat there and stared at him. I was so gobsmacked by the fact that he wanted me to teach that I couldn't even say anything.
I was speechless, and finally, my husband outbogued me, and he said, Julie, say yes. And I said yes to the calling, but I felt so much like Enique.
I felt so inadequate because in seminary, when I was in school and we were supposed to study the scriptures, I didn't.
I just winged it, and I never really studied the scriptures, and I didn't understand them, and I didn't know them, and I certainly wasn't a teacher.
And for the first three months of my calling every single Sunday, it was four Sundays in a row back then, I would stand up and I would, well, first I'd cry before I got to church because I felt like I couldn't do it.
And then I would look over the audience and I would think, well, they should have called this person to be the teacher, or this person would have done a good job, or that person would have done a good job.
Because my identity was not a teacher, my identity was not somebody who understood the scriptures. But I put my heart and soul into that, and I had the opportunity to teach for four years, and it fundamentally changed my life.
It changed everything about me. The Lord taught me in very powerful ways that I am a teacher, that I have always been a teacher, and I learned how to understand and love the scriptures in ways that have blessed me immeasurably.
I get my answers from the scriptures, I get peace from the scriptures, I love the scriptures, and that would have never happened had I not taken on something that I felt completely inadequate to do.
The Lord really did fulfill his promises to me that I would be able to be a teacher and make a difference in people's lives because of the opportunity to teach. But we have to be open to accepting that, right?
We have to be open to stepping out of our comfort zones. We have to be open to realizing that just because people around us tell us we're worthless or we have failures or we don't look the way we think we should look that that's not who we are.
Our worth doesn't change by our mistakes, our worth doesn't change by our experiences, and our worth doesn't change by what people say. Our worth is defined by God. And he's the one who is the giver of the good gift.
And we need to be open to receive that gift that we truly are beloved children of God.
And as such, we are open to receiving help, to receiving gifts, to receiving peace, and to receiving grace to accomplish the things that the Lord has invited us to do in our lives. As we finish up, I would like to offer you an invitation.
President Nielsen gave, he has a quote. He gave an invitation. He said, Ask God what he thinks about you.
Ask your heavenly father in the name of Jesus Christ, how he feels about you and your mission here on earth. If you ask with real intent, over time, the spirit will whisper the life-changing truth to you.
And I can testify that that is true as I have done that. And I've seen that come to happen in my own life. Next, pray to accept the love all around you.
When we feel inadequate, when we feel less than, when we view life through the experience and the lens of our past trauma and pain, our rejections, the experiences that taught us that we're unlovable, then we're unable to receive the love that is all
around us and the people that truly want to love us and are showing up for us on a regular basis. But we're missing it because we're not accepting it. And so pray that you'll be able to receive the love that's all around you.
And then lastly, I will, I want to share with you one of my favorite affirmations that I have said for years and I absolutely love. Put your hand over your heart and you say, I am brilliant, gifted, gorgeous and fabulous.
If you believed that you were brilliant, gifted, gorgeous and fabulous, that God loved you and was going to support you in whatever it is that you were trying to do, how would you show up differently? I invite you into receiving this gift.
Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a wonderful day. And please, will you share this podcast with someone else?
Thanks again.
