While summer isn’t officially over until mid-September (whatever!), many have started or will start the transition back to a more regular and busier pace of life. Calendars will begin to fill up with activities, practices, games, and other events. Requests will come to participate in this group, assist with planning this fundraiser, be the team snack coordinator, and the list goes on. There will be work engagements, family requirements, and church (!) service opportunities along with a host of other worthwhile endeavors. And to be clear, some of those you should say yes to and give yourself to wholeheartedly.
But as your pastor, I have to let you in on an important secret. Are you listening? Lean in a little closer. Here it is.
You can’t do it all.
What? You didn’t hear that? A bit louder then.
You.
Can’t.
Do.
It.
All.
Why not? Because you are human and you have limits. John Mark Comer (yes, that guy again and from the same book) gives ten limits we must come to terms with and that’s only the beginning. His ten are:
Our bodies. Can only be in one place at one time
Our minds. We don’t know everything and we often don’t know what we don’t know
Our giftings. I look at Jack’s fall semester courses (Biology I, Chemistry I, Calculus I) and almost faint. Where are the novels?
Our personalities and emotional wiring.
Our families of origins. We do not enter the world as blank slates or into a world that is a blank slate.
Our socioeconomic origins.
Our education and careers. You don’t want me to build bridges or do your knee replacement surgery, though I would try to do my very best.
Our seasons of life and their responsibilities. New baby in the house? Aging parents to tend to? Major life transitions?
Our eighty or so years of life if we get that many. God has numbered (limited) each of our days and we don’t get one less or one more than that.
God’s call on our lives. God called me to be the father of seven children. That placed limits on me, my vocation, my marriage, my finances. It also put limits on my children. Each of them couldn’t be in seven different activities.
Saints, don’t fight against your finiteness, your limits. It’s part of what it means to be a creature and not the Creator. Don’t assume limitations are bad or something to fight against. Instead, see them as the way that God is intimately involved in shaping the person who is uniquely you. As another writer put it, We find God’s will for our lives in our limitations. Don’t resist but instead trust in the sovereign goodness of God to use even your limits for His glory and your good.
