Deep Limitations Teach Deep Trust

My watch alarm buzzed, reminding me that it was time for another dose of my medication. Although prescribed to manage the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, its main effect so far had been nausea. I missed the days of seemingly unlimited energy and stamina, the freedom of a prescription-free life. But as I gulped down the tablets with big swallows of water, I reminded myself to be patient with the process, to accept God’s assignment, and to learn from the limitations of an aging and ailing body.

God designed us with limits for a good reason: to teach us to worship him. We come to the end of our own resources and cry out for his rescue. As we stop trying so hard to do what only God can accomplish in our lives, and as we come to the blessed realization that we can lay those things down, we begin to place our trust in him — and to displace our trust in our own strategies and vigilance. When we acknowledge our own limits and celebrate God’s limitlessness, we find freedom.

Reflection or Rival?

Sadly, humanity has been pushing against limitations since the beginning of time. The serpent’s crafty invitation — “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5) — ironically distorted a promised gift that was already in effect. As God’s image bearers, our role has been to reflect, in our own finite and creaturely way, God’s love, holiness, wisdom, justice, goodness, mercy, grace, patience, and faithfulness. The grasping choice to seek knowledge for which God never designed us was essentially a choice to become God’s rival.

Sadly, “garden moments” continue today and every day. The following are just a few examples of how we strive to usurp God’s incommunicable attributes.

We desire his unchanging nature. We shrug our shoulders and play the “It’s just the way I am” card when only God, the great I Am, is unchangeable (Numbers 23:19; Malachi 3:6).

We covet his omnipotence. When life yields distressing evidence that we are not in control, we may resort to manipulation or nagging to get our way. We may long for the power to control our circumstances and protect the people we love, but we were not designed for omnipotence.

“When we acknowledge our own limits and celebrate God’s limitlessness, we find freedom.”

We pursue omnipresence. Technology has enabled us to manufacture a sad, counterfeit omnipresence, with our phones at the dinner table enticing us to be in two places at once. Helicopter parents hover over their children, depriving them of the space they need to make mistakes and to experience failure. Parents of adult children who offer unsolicited advice and breach healthy boundaries place themselves in situations and conversations never intended for them. We scramble to exert our influence everywhere, at all times, as if we can mimic God’s presence (Psalm 139:7; Jeremiah 23:24).

We chase after omniscience. Like Eve with her mouth full of forbidden fruit, we have all resorted to Google and Siri to cobble together our own brand of faux omniscience. Chasing down details as we endlessly obsess over the latest natural disaster or political scandal is not only a waste of time; it also disturbs our peace and distracts us from the good work we could do.

God’s incommunicable attributes belong to God alone. When we fight to rival him, our efforts are “vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

Ways Higher Than Our Ways

God’s self-revelation to the prophet Isaiah captures the mystery of his nature, so distinct from our own. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). Psalm 103:11 uses the same Hebrew idiom from these verses to express the infinitude of God’s love for us: “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.” The difference between God and humanity is so vast that biblical writers chose to portray it with the kind of cosmic imagery we now measure in light-years.

Only descriptions like these could capture God’s majesty. God is the maker of sunrises and comets, the designer of lemurs and salamanders, the creator of my grandson’s dimpled smile. He is changeless, limitless, and sinless. Yet alongside these high and holy descriptions, Scripture overflows with reasons to celebrate God’s differences from us:

• He is ready to pardon and to reconcile. My limited compassion for someone who has offended me is a pale shadow of God’s ever-gushing well of forgiveness (Psalm 86:5; Joel 2:13; 1 John 1:9).
• While we tend to seek friends and colleagues who will be an asset to us, God’s compassionate heart is drawn to the lowly (Psalm 138:6; Isaiah 57:15).
• Every time we take communion, we remind our prone-to-wander hearts that he alone keeps covenant without fail (Deuteronomy 7:9).
  
• Unlike us, God never loses sight of the priority of his glory, which he demonstrates for our good (Isaiah 42:8; 43:7).
  
• We are often weary and stretched thin, while God is not constrained by time and never gets tired (Isaiah 40:28–31).

Stunningly, this God who is wholly “other” has revealed himself and even drawn near in the person of Jesus Christ. Clothed in humanity so he could submit to death on a cross, Jesus became one of us. This is the good news at the heart of the gospel. How amazing that the distinctions between God’s heart and ours don’t distance us from him but rather reveal the degree to which his heart is set on us.

Conformed to the Image of Christ

Here’s some really good news: God says that followers of Christ can be like him. Bearing his image and indwelt by his Spirit, we experience the miracle of actual holiness, genuine faithfulness, and Christlike love — God’s communicable attributes arising in us as we submit to the sandpaper of God’s sanctifying work.

Scripture invites us to become like God through his Son, Jesus, and turns the serpent’s insincere offer to Eve on its head. While we once walked in darkness, we now have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5–11). Jesus invites us to learn his ways (Matthew 11:29; Luke 6:40). Paul exhorts us to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1; 1 Corinthians 11:1). John tells us to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). Throughout, we rejoice that God has chosen us to be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29).

In our parenting, in our marriages, in our work, and everywhere else, we hold in tension the reality of our limitations as we draw on the limitless power available to us in Christ. And we look forward to the new heavens and the new earth, for “when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Until that day, embrace your limitations. Meditate on God’s limitlessness. And rejoice that through every challenge and triumph, God is shaping you into the image of his Son.