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To be human is to be
finite. To be human is to have limits.
We have limited time,
resources, energy, attention, and ability. How often do we wish we
had just one more hour to finish a task, a little more energy (and
thinking another cup of coffee will do it—or is that just me?), a bit
more money? We understand that limits aren’t necessarily bad—we know
as a matter of head knowledge that margin and rest are good. Yet when
we encounter our own limits, we chafe. We want to push just a little
past them.
It is worth noticing
that this very same temptation shows up at the beginning of the
biblical story.
In the garden, Adam
and Eve were surrounded by abundance—with but one God given limit.
They could eat from every tree but just the one. That limit wasn’t
evidence of God’s stinginess; it was an invitation to trust His
goodness and provision.
Then comes the
serpent: Why
accept the limit? Why not reach for just a little more?
We hear an echo when
Jesus enters the wilderness. “Turn these stones to bread.” “Throw
yourself down.” “Bow down, and all these kingdoms can be yours.”
Again, we see the temptation to grasp rather than receive—to exercise
power apart from dependence on the Father.
But Jesus does what
Adam and Eve had not. He
trusts the Father within the limits of being not only fully God, but
also fully human and thus finite. Jesus didn’t come
from heaven to earth as a super-hero, he didn’t come like Hercules,
or Thor. Jesus came and showed that ordinary and obedient—aligned
with God’s will—overcomes even death.
That pattern
continues throughout His ministry. Jesus faces almost unrelenting
demands: crowds gather, the sick need healing, people bring
questions. There is always somewhere else He could go, someone else
He could heal, something else He could do.
Yet Luke tells us, “Jesus often withdrew to
lonely places and prayed.”
Jesus does not treat
His human limitations as obstacles to His mission. If this is true of
Jesus—fully God, yet willing to live within the limits of being fully
human—how much more must it be true of us?
Limits are not merely
hindrances to overcome. They
can be gifts of grace. They remind us that we are
creatures, not the Creator; dependent upon God rather than capable of
endless achievement.
So when you run into
one of those pesky limits—your time runs out, your energy fails, or
you simply cannot do everything that needs doing—rather than asking, How can I push past this?
perhaps ask:
What invitation to
life with God might be contained within this limit?
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