Several years ago, when I was in my early thirties, I set a specific goal to do an 8k (five mile) run in under 30 minutes. It was the fall of 2016, and I was lining up for the Portugal Day race in Central Park. That morning, my body felt strong. When the horn sounded and we started running, I settled into a pace that was faster than anything I had practised. But I felt great! I ended up crossing the finish line at thirty-five minutes. A respectable time, but not the goal I had set.
That day, I learned something very important: I would never run like Roger Bannister, no matter how hard I pushed myself. I might beat a personal best, but I would never reach the level of an “elite runner.” That race made me keenly aware of my limitations.
It also taught me something about the reality of life itself. Every one of us lives with limits. Some of those limits are physical. Others are emotional, mental, relational, or spiritual. Some are temporary, others lifelong.
And for many of us, those limits can become a source of frustration or shame especially when we begin comparing ourselves to others. We can find ourselves asking, “Why can’t I be smarter? Why can’t I be stronger? Why can’t I run faster?”
The Bible gives us a surprisingly honest answer to these questions: limitation is part of what it means to be human. From the very beginning, God created us with boundaries. Even before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve were not infinite, not all-knowing, not self-sufficient. They depended on God. They depended on one another. They lived within God-given limits. And those limits were not flaws they were reminders that they were not God.
But when sin entered the world, those limits were compounded by brokenness. Our bodies fail. Minds grow weary. And our limits gently- sometimes painfully- remind us of our frailty.
But here’s the good news, our limitations are no obstacle for God. In fact, God delights in using fragile, limited people to display His power, so that the credit belongs not to human strength, but to His grace.
If life here were always easy, if we had no limits and no struggles, we might never lift our eyes toward heaven. We might never cry out with the songwriter, “Lord, I need you: oh, I need You. Every hour, I need You.”
So embracing our limitations does not mean resigning ourselves to defeat. It means placing our confidence in the One who says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). As my dad used to say, “Son, do the best you can with the grace God has given you.” And that’s the call for every Christian: receive God’s grace, trust His strength, and faithfully run the race He has set before you.
These articles are 100% man-made, without the use of generative AI.