A Paradox?
-Tim Wilkins (Permission granted to reprint; cite www.crossministry.org)
Knowing your limitations can expand your influence!
I recently made that statement to a friend who could not understand it. He mistook “limitations” for “weaknesses” saying that if a person has a weakness, they can work to strengthen it. I explained that the statement I had coined appeared to be a paradox, but made perfect sense.
He remained unmoved. I said that the world’s advice – for those who are juggling much – is to do more. Multitasking, as we define it, is not a biblical concept. Paul wrote “I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Read these excerpts from a sermon by Charles Spurgeon.
“The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body… Rest time is not waste time… To tug the oar from day to day, like a galley-slave who knows no holidays, suits not mortal men….the very sea pauses at ebb and flood; earth keeps the Sabbath of the wintry months; and man, even when exalted to be God’s ambassador, must rest or faint; must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigour or grow prematurely old. It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.”
A paradox? No.
Knowing your limitations can expand your influence!
How does one know their limitations? The body and the mind will tell you, if you but listen.
Many people believe that if you can’t “hear yourself think” you should think louder. The opposite is true. “Be still and know that I am God.” Jesus Christ, so weary he fell asleep on a sinking boat in the middle of a storm, could wake and command the winds and waters to be still, but He cannot make you be “still.” Oh, He can allow an injury or illness to slow your physical pace but even then you can refuse to slow your mental pace.
You must do it IF you want to know He is God. The Unlimited God will show you your limitations if you “be still.” And knowing your limitations can expand your influence!
