"We are, by God's good design, finite...limited by space, time and power, and our knowledge, energy and perspective also have always been limited."
~Kelly Kapic
I wear a few hats.
I'm a wife, a mom, a sister, daughter and friend. I'm a nurse, a student and wife of a pastor. The place I've found myself in often is the tension between seeking to live a faithful life with the gifts the Lord has given me, within the limits He has also defined. Though we have many choices, gifts and abilities, there's a cultural pressure (sometimes subtle, other times not) to succeed or surpass the boundaries of time and the reality of our physical bodies.
In our efforts to live out our calling, we (eventually) come to realize that we cannot "do" everything.
In Kelly Kapic's upcoming book, You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News, he reminds us we ought to seek forgiveness for ever imagining we could!!
Our human limits may seem like a restraint (preventing us from becoming superheroes) but what they do is remind us:
1) We are not God.
2) We depend on others.
He spends the first part of the book helping us understand our human selves, and the second part on what our dependence looks like - challenging our trust and humility. The last chapter brings it all together, guiding us into faithful living for today.
Reading this book, I spent time considering the fact that God knows our limits. It's not exactly a novel idea, yet the pressure we may feel to exceed what we're actually able to do (as if it's God's will to "do" everything), really doesn't come from Him because He already knows we can't. It's not an excuse for walking in disobedience or from serving the Lord and others with our whole hearts, it's really an opportunity to experience grace within our life, choices and "doings."
Another important idea, is "God created us for mutual dependence and light within a life-giving community: that isn't merely a goal; it's how we are built." While our perspective about church may be that it's a choice - we certainly choose where we worship and how we serve - but it's so much more than arriving on a Sunday morning for an hour and leaving. If we're designed for community, and Scripture teaches this to be true, we need each other for more than just a "hey how are you?" once a week, because our human limits don't allow us to go it alone.
If understanding our human limits and learning how to grow in humility and dependence are topics of interest to you, I'd recommend this one!
Quick Stats
# of Pages: 272
Level of Difficulty: Moderate
My Rating: 4 stars
*A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.
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