Limitations

 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. Psalm 16:6

I've been mulling something I heard a woman named Sarah Hagerty speak of for several days now. She was talking of the tension that can exist between a Christ follower believing there are no limitations in living out what He has called us to and the reality that in our human condition, there really are stark limits that we live under. Grasping this and living in the full faith and hope that we have in Him while grappling with the very real limitations that can take place in our lives is one of our great faith challenges. God does allow things that do place limitations on what we can do and be. Coming to grips with that determines whether we will live as victors, or victims.

Clint Eastwood's iconic character, Harry Callahan said, "A man's got to know his limitations." None of us, man or woman, really likes to think in such terms. We want to believe in a life with no limits in Him, which makes it very hard to deal with the many limitations He allows entry into our lives. We have dreams, desires, even visions of that which we want to do and be in His Kingdom. And then circumstances enter in. Circumstances, limitations, that He allowed, that He could have prevented, but didn't. We wanted a life partner to enter into the dream with, but He never gave one. We wanted children to enjoy and love along the journey's way, but they weren't given, or worse, were given but lost. We wanted a wide vista of ministry opportunity, but instead, He placed us where we seem to be forgotten, unseen, and unknown. Where we are is not where we ever thought we'd be. What we're doing is something we never thought we'd be doing. Why? How? How could this be His will for us? How could He let this be?

We're in good company here. Job. Joseph. David. The apostles Paul and John. They all found themselves in places where the dream had died. Where they had severe limitations upon them and on every level. They had the same questions we do. I feel sure that all of them went through the process Hagerty described as I listened to her speak. You may be going through it right now. If you're not, the time will come when you will.

Hagerty said that in life, we will come to the place of death. The place where a dream, a desire, a loved one, a ministry, has died. The trauma that hits us is intense. It leaves us reeling. We are confronted with the fact of suffering coming to those that He loves with an infinite love, and what is happening to us doesn't seem like His love at all. 

From there, we enter into the next place, and that's the place of grief and suffering. We would never go to the place willingly, but if we enter in, we will discover His beauty there. We'll discover Him. Hagerty says that in this place, He comes and He enters into our suffering and grief. He grieves with us. This is a concept we struggle to accept. We see Him as standing apart in our pain. He doesn't. He enters into it with us. As we grieve and sorrow, so does He. We cling to Him as He clings to us. However long He must stay, He does. And then He leads us out.

This takes us into the last stage, resurrection. All that we learned of Him in the grief, in the suffering, in the loss, is now added unto our lives and we are now equipped to minister His life to those who come after us. He comes to others through us. We can be His vessels now in ways we never could before. All our losses and limitations, painful as they were, have revealed to us a Jesus we never knew as we do now. What we suffered in the "death" has yielded a life beyond limits. Our limitations brought about unlimited and abundant life in Him.

God uses our grief and our suffering to do His works of life in us. Hagerty spoke of our "grieving well." She writes "Jesus says, 'Come to Me with your ache.' Many of us have years of splinters we never brought to Him, and we wonder why hope is lost? Hope is never lost." In our grief, He does His deep work of healing and restoration. He not only heals the wounding of the immediate loss but if we will have it, He will remove all those splinters, causing all those small but ever bleeding wounds. The place of our pain becomes our gateway to the fullness of His life. We enter into our inheritance. The limitations He allowed and allows will lead us to experience an unlimited Savior. Our lives will experience the trauma and pain, the Friday and Saturday of pain, loss, and suffering, but so too, if we will trust Him, we will behold the Sunday that follows. Take hope. Take heart. Sunday has come!

Blessings,
Pastor O