Encouraging Words-Know Your Limits

Then he said to me, "This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies."--Zechariah 4:6 (NLT)

If you take time to peruse the Amazon.com site (one of my favorite things to do), you can easily find a plethora of books claiming they can show you how to live a life with no limits.  This philosophy, sometime well-intentioned, other times just a ruse, claims to lay out the path so a person can do or accomplish anything they set their mind to.  If we follow the steps they have laid out, you and I can have the job, wealth, house, body, and spouse of our dreams because the only limits we face are those we place upon ourselves with doubt and lack of self-discipline.

Then there’s the other approach, put forth by Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” in the movie Magnum Force, where he finds out his boss has never fired his gun.  Harry made the snide remark, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

You would think in an e-mail titled “Encouraging Words” I’d be a proponent of the “no limits” approach.  Instead, I believe in the gospel according to Dirty Harry—a man (or woman) DOES need to know their limitations.
If you don’t, they you won’t realize when the Lord is stepping in.  If you think you truly have no limits, why would you ever reach out to God?  Why does God allow us to feel overwhelmed?  I have no doubt it is so we can come to him and say HELP!

You see, our Lord does not want us to be self-sufficient.  Most of us were taught that value growing up and our society reinforces that, showing dependence on anyone or anything else as a major sign of weakness.  As a result, many people think Christians are weak when we drop to our knees and ask God for help, strength, peace, resolution of problems, etc.  If we were really strong, society tells us, we’d just hunker down and work harder.

Our Lord certainly values hard work, but he wants that work to bring glory to Him, not simply glory to us.  While I generally have a good awareness of that, it is easy for me and anyone else to get so caught up in the daily grind that we lose track of it.  I have 17 people working on my staff with a lot of different, unrelated, responsibilities.  That can make for some very interesting days on the job for me, and often does, but when several different situations require urgent attention at the same time, it does get overwhelming. 

I was at that point again last week when, on the way to my car, I heard the Lord’s voice clearly tell me, “It’s not about what you can do, it’s about what I can do.”  His loving words reminded me that it’s okay to feel like I can’t do it all.  I do have limits, and when those are exceeded is when He really shines through in our life!  The scripture above is often used in terms of a battle, but if the struggle with my own limitations isn’t a battle then I’ve never been in one.

Think about this-does Superman swoop down every time a cat is stuck in a tree?  No, we don’t need him for that.  If Lex Luthor is trying to start World War III, that is a job for Superman.  Although we can certainly see the Lord is the small, simple things in our lives, His specialty is bearing the burdens and accomplishing the things we can’t handle without Him.  When we narrowly avoid an accident or when a miraculous financial blessing comes through, we benefit but He is glorified! 

As Christians we often talk about wanting to bring glory to God.  One of the best ways to do that is, like Dirty Harry said, know our limitations.  Understand where we stop and God picks up.  We have limits, but His blessings are limitless.