“We find God’s will for our lives in our limitations.”
– Pete Scazzero
I’m sitting with a hot cup of turkish tea in my hand while I peer across at this beautiful and strong Georgian woman named Manono. Behind her are stacks of ornate handmade Georgian rugs in a shop that she has owned for 30 years. She’s sharing that her husband passed from COVID in January and my eyes are welled up with giant tears of compassion and I want God to provide an open space of healing for her.
It had been an emotionally turbulent few days for Linds and I as I had fears and frustrations pop up and out that carry over from miscommunications, unmet expectations and previous “wounds”. We were making up time this day in early celebration for my birthday and found ourselves in a rug shop she had passed by the year before when the Lord told her “not yet” as she walked by, allured by the traditional artwork in the rugs. We were both tender from the reparations in our friendship and ready to lead other people into the tenderness of God’s healing abilities. You can only give away what you have….
We listened to, shared with and prayed over Manono and Linds got a rug or two. Filled with the Spirit, we left in awe of God using our human toil for His perfect timing to minister to her heart.
My heart soared as we sat and worshipped in a nearby park before capping the evening. We get to see her again on June 15th when we pick up the rugs and hope to share more. A simple testimony to what God can do within the “constraints” of a business deal – he blows up the limitations of time and transactions and inserts a placeholder to move when we lean in. God can do a lot with a willing Spirit, making it a divine appointment. He can also do a lot with a simple question and an eager heart, even amidst insecurities, schedules and the duties of us as Squad Leaders.
Galatians 5:13-26 in the Message translation reads like this:
“It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?”
“My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are contrary to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?”
“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.”
“But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.”
“Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”
I’ve walked a good deal of the last few years not knowing what gifts I bring to the table. I’ve found myself ebbing and flowing between contentment in the discovery process and resentment at the clarity of other peoples naturally given talents and gifts. I started off trying to piece feedback together to understand how people view me to try and clear up whatever blur I was experiencing but was left with a slew of things I didn’t like the comprehensive sound of:
“sensitive” “in-touch with emotions” “outspoken” “different” “patient” “listens well”…..
None of those stacked up to the invisible list of unspoken expectations and ideals I had etched at some point in my formative years. I wanted to be wildly funny, breathtakingly intelligent, I wanted to be piercingly beautiful, to be the MOST daring and the MOST brave. Not just adjectives but clear anointing in these areas where people SAW you. I wanted to be the one that walked in a room and everyone looked at and thought “wow she’s SPECIAL”, I wanted to be more socially comfortable and able to have the emotional and mental capacity to have over 100000 friends in my lifetime!!!!! What a dreamy life, all inspired by self-sufficient individuals who seem to know what to do at any moment. I wanted that and mostly STILL want that.
So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
– Ecclesiastes 2:9-11
But that dreamy life doesn’t leave much room for God to move or be glorified…just me. Little old Allison shining in a cheap glory that is determined by man’s gaze and man’s gaze alone and pushes towards idolatry of others who have what I think I want. It also isn’t a life considering practicalities such as what those gifts require in terms of responsibility….so.
God has surrounded me with some strong, wise and very talented brothers and sisters and it’s a test every day to uphold what that above scripture says. “That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”
Maybe you struggle with this too or maybe you’ve beaten this comparison trap, either way we all know this mistress to varying degrees but it is just that – a mistress. It steals away from the riches and beauty hand-crafted for us each and every moment of our lives on this side of heaven. It’s abusive and scary and also, so seductive.
Where we get to flip the script, change our narrative and walk in that freedom Paul talks about in Galatians starts in how we view our limitations or unmet ideals for our lives and those around us:
Limitations inform Your Decision-Making.
When you know your limits, you adjust your thinking to account for them. If I were always the one people were looking at, I would be lonely and I wouldn’t see all the creative expressions of God’s love in other members of the body. I would have no use for community….
They Can Remove Stress If You Allow Them To.
There is comfort in knowing your limits. You don’t have to worry or stress over whether to push them. You relax knowing the limit is just that, the limit. You move on. You accept yourself as you are, appreciate how you were inherently created and once you reach the end of yourself, you get to extend your hands up to God with great expectation.
Limits Highlight Potential Opportunities for Learning/Growth.
When you reach limits, you respect them. If you wish to expand your limits, learn more about the limit in question. Seek advice, training or more information. Improve yourself. A limit is not always permanent, especially if it’s a skill-related limit. God is the one who writes the script, He is the one who knows what worldly limitations you have and where He can swoop in and breathe new life into areas of your character, personality and general life to sustain you and nourish you. He is TRUSTWORTHY.
Awareness of Them Can Keep You Safe.
Staying within the limit keeps you safe, less stressed, making life more enjoyable. But the key thing here is knowing that God’s definition of “safe” looks much different than our own. It may not look like a warm bed and a hot meal every night, but He will always provide, so why not sit back and enjoy the ride a little?
ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL REVELATION is that our understanding is limited, which is a GIFT. It means that we get to lean on God’s view of ourselves and of others more fully than we get to lean on our own eyes and perceptions. Praise God that I’m wrong about things more often than I am right, He’s glorified in my weakness. Yours too. Good work 🙂
Don’t be trapped in a flurry of limitations, lean in, invite God to show you how to accept them and then watch how he comes beside you in moments where you feel ill-equipped and far from ready. He wants to do life with you and wants you to do life with others. Lean into the discomfort of who you think you are and are not, what you can and cannot do and release your need to control.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
– unknown origins of this quote but a lot of people have said it
I remind myself of this quote often when I’ve run out in front of God…
A blog I read in pursuit of writing this blog summarized this more perfectly than I could craft myself:
“More than being able to rock the babe, potty-train the toddler and solve my thirteen year-old’s problems (all at once), I want that deep peace that comes with surrender to God. The deep peace that accompanies the safest of friendships. (He never asked me to be limitless. He just asked me to be His.) This surrender is one of the most becoming things I’ve seen in a person. I’ve found myself scouring faces for it in the way a freshman does at the senior class on her first day of school. What is it that I see in these few sages in my life who finally rest at peace in their pursuit of God — who are relentless but not fearful, reaching but not anxious, determined but not proudly ambitious?”
– Sarah Hagerty
Thanks for reading friends, pray for O-Squad as we head into a time of debriefing, team changes, leadership changes and training. We finish our time in my favorite city of all, Tbilisi, Georgia, then head to Armenia! I’ll be leaving the field on June 22nd and would love to catch up stateside before my next endeavors. Love y’all!
Oh the constant battle of is my priority to look good to others or to live a life in desperate need of God’s goodness. May God get us all to the point where we can boast in our weakness with the apostle Paul. So good, Allie. Thanks for the encouragement to not try (and not need) to be a one man show!
What an awesome perspective, thank you for sharing this and obviously spending some time on it, I had to reread a few parts because it was so concentrated. Definitely helps me meditate on the Word and look outside the world today 🙂
“ Lean into the discomfort of who you think you are and are not, what you can and cannot do and release your need to control.”
^This.
I absolutely love reading your work every single time. This one really resonated with me. Thank you for sharing your heart. Love you big time Al
Brilliant, humble, God-fearing, and encouraging. I love this, Al.