I’m limited. There are so many things I can’t do. I’m limited, unable, incapable. Just ask my “techno” son. He’ll confirm my ineptness.
Some things I can do well. I’m good at teaching God’s Word. No, that’s not pride, just a honest assessment of myself (Romans 12:3). As a female teacher of God’s Word, I hear the rumbles more than I care to, “Jackie, don’t be too much. You shouldn’t teach here, there or with them.”
I recently heard the following declaration at my daughter’s high school graduation. It was echoed across America at high school and on college campuses.
We all have something in the midst of our lives that’s beyond our created reach. Something we cannot freely take in. It reminds us WE are not gods who have it ALL. (emphasis mine)
Regardless of what you achieve, you need God… limitless, loving God.
Limitations, right?
Don’t we live between two truths? On one hand we’re told, “You can’t—so be less.”
On the other hand we’re told, “You can achieve whatever you set your mind to.”
We are a people who say, “Go for it; the sky’s the limit, you can do it!” Isn’t this the attitude that first took men to the moon, that enabled heart transplants and the internet, to mention a few?
And yet, at 46, I’m woefully aware I can’t do it or have it all. I’m limited, oh so limited. For crying out loud, I can’t even turn our television on or off. Why do we need four remotes to do that? What happened to a simple on and off button?
I’m not sure if my daughter’s graduation or my aging makes me ponder this idea of limitations.
M. Craig Barnes’, Pastors and Minor Poets says this about limitations:
The first two Bible chapters provide our only picture of the life God desired for us creatures. It was paradise. Planted in the middle of the garden was a tree whose fruit was forbidden. It’s significant this tree was not located at the margins of Eden… where it could be ignored. Adam and Eve’s walks past this tree everyday made them aware they weren’t created to have it ALL. That is God’s idea of paradise for us.
