Are human limitations good or bad? The answer is, “Yes” …

Limitations.

In spite of the bazillion kids who heard from their parents while growing up they could be or do anything they wanted in life, the truth is God created all of us with limits.

The good thing about limitations include:

They remind us we aren’t God, and shouldn’t try to be. We aren’t all-powerful, all-knowing, or perfect. Having limits helps us find the end of ourselves and reminds us of our need for, and dependence upon, our Creator.

So knowing our limits helps us wisely determine when and where to stop pushing instead of striving vainly in ways that rob us of our time, energy, and resources.

And knowing our limitations identifies the great area in which we can unleash our full attention and efforts to be the most fruitful.

Pulpit Helps gives this insight on the value of limits:

It is not only a consecration of abilities that God wants, but of our inabilities also. An invalid was told that she could never escape from her prison of pain and weakness.

“Oh, well,” she replied quickly, “there’s a lot of living to be found within your limitations, if you don’t wear yourself out fighting them.”

“Young lady,” the doctor replied, ‘I wish I could have you preach to about a hundred of my patients a year.”

The lady was Helen Keller who said, “Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them, but do not let them master you.”

There’s a lot of living to be found within your limitations!

That is, as long as you don’t allow your limitations to falsely hinder you. Richard Feynman didn’t, as we glean from this tidbit from Bits & Pieces:

After physicist Richard Feynman won a Nobel prize for his work, he visited his old high school. While there, he decided to look up his records. He was surprised to find that his grades were not as good as he had remembered them. And he got a kick out of the fact that his IQ was 124, not much above average. Dr. Feynman saw that winning the Nobel prize was one thing, but to win it with an IQ of only 124 was really something. Most of us would agree because we all assume that the winners of Nobel prizes have exceptionally high IQs. Feynman confided that he always assumed that he had.

If Feynman had known he was really just a bit above average in the IQ department, we wonder if he would have had the audacity to launch the unique and creative research experiments that would eventually win him the greatest recognition the scientific community can give.

Perhaps not. Maybe the knowledge that he was a cut above average, but not in the genius category, would have influenced what he tried to achieve. After all, from childhood most of us have been led to believe that ordinary people don’t accomplish extraordinary feats.

Most of us fall short of our potential because of little things we know or assume about ourselves. And the most self-defeating assumption of all is that we are just like everyone else.

What human history — and what is recorded in the Bible — teaches us is that God can do great things with your best efforts within your limits, a truth reflected in this story about George Dantzig in Reader’s Digest:

During his first year of graduate study at the University of California at Berkeley, George B. Dantzig (later known as the father of linear programming) arrived late for a statistics class. He saw two problems on the blackboard. Assuming they were homework, he copied them and a few days later turned in his solutions. One Sunday morning six weeks afterward, the professor appeared at Dantzig’s door, waving a manuscript. It turned out that the professor had merely written two examples of unsolvable problems on the blackboard. The manuscript was Dantzig’s work readied for publication.

Some people waste away their lives pushing and fighting against their limitations rather than thriving and being wildly fruitful within them. What are you doing with your limitations?

Scotty