Finite

A good family friend of ours favors a particular T-shirt that has just recently caused me to think. He wears it in my presence just often enough that I'm beginning to wonder if maybe he hasn't been trying to tell me something all along. Sort of the 100% pre-shrunk cotton version of Ye-Faithful-Old-Sandwich-Board-Prophet; his message(if you will) posed in a question that I now know would be wise to ask myself more often...

"Why does every good idea I have get me into trouble?"

You see, I have had my share of 'Good ideas' this past year. And can you guess where they have all gotten me?

Yep, Trouble.

With all the things that have been happening I have been treading water just to keep from drowning. I have tried to meet every need and manage every problem we have been facing. I have stayed up late and gotten up early, I have been irritated that the only jobs in the paper are one's suited for me, not my husband; the one who is out of work. I have driven to apply for those jobs in an attempt to answer the financial questions, 'where will the money for (fill in the blank) come from?', and I have cried all the way there, knowing it was wrong. I have cried out to God for mercy...'I can't DO anymore...I am TIRED!'...and then I have tried to do more anyway.

But, then I paused long enough to hear those four little letters, and they got through.

S.T.O.P.

"STOP.

Retrace your steps-you were on to something there, what did you just say?

Oh, that's right... you can't do it anymore".

I have been trying to fight this fight on my own strength. I have been saying yes to things God has never called me to do because I don't trust Him to be and do what His word promises He will. I been living in a state of exhaustion instead of entering into His rest.

Despite the fact that it has been screaming at me, I have been forgetting the one fatal flaw in all my 'good ideas':


I am finite.


I have definite and definable limits.
I am limited in nature and existence.


What this means is that I can try all I want, but MY plans will never work.


As horribly depressing as that thought should be, I find it so liberating.

It is liberating because it points me back towards God, who is infinite.

Or in other words:

1 : extending indefinitely : endless
2 : immeasurably or inconceivably great or extensive : inexhaustible
3 : subject to no limitation or external determination.


Did you get the inexhaustible part? Don't say I didn't point it out to you.

He is SO not me.

We have access to a God who is incapable of being used up; He is incapable of being wearied or worn out.

It's the best idea yet...

Think it would fit on a T-shirt?