Don’t Let Your Limits Stop You – Part 2 — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

Talking about the business of limitations. Don’t let your limits stop you. That’s what I was saying yesterday morning. And I want to just take the example, the simple example of an elephant, an elephant in the circus. You know, of course, an elephant can pick up an awful lot with his trunk. And the elephant is one of the most powerful animals there is.

So in that circus you’ll see that massive animal tied up to a little stake in the ground, and that animal stays there. Now really, he’s got the potential to go anywhere he wants and pull up that stake, but instead he simply just looks around and probably thinks, Wow, things would be different if I could get out of here.

But the elephant’s problem is not a physical limitation because the story goes that when he was young he was tied to a stake that was deep in the ground before he was sort of getting his strength, and he would have pulled and struggled as a as a youngster and couldn’t get away from it. He was stuck. So he at some point in his life accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to get away and he decided that he was stuck. He had allowed the limitations which had been placed upon him to keep from becoming what it could possibly be, it never crossed his mind that he is not the same elephant he was years ago when he didn’t have much strength, and he doesn’t recognise that that stake is not nearly as strong as it once was, because he, of course, is a fully grown animal.

Don’t Let Your Limits Stop You – Part 1 — Morning Devotions

Well, thinking about that animal illustration reminds me that sometimes we need to wake up to the fact that we are not the same people we were back then.

In an amazing way, God has equipped us with additional strength, and if we’ve got that courage, we can challenge the things that might be holding us back.

What is holding you back sometimes?

And if you could break through, there’s a whole new world waiting for you.

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I think put your trust and confidence in God and a loving God who wants to have a relationship with you. So many times it’s not us who put the limitations on us, it’s somebody else. People say you can’t do it. You can’t, you won’t do it. You’ll never amount to anything. You’re just like your father.

Without me you can do nothing. You owe me this.

And before we know it, if we take those statements to heart, we like the elephant, we just think we’re stuck. I won’t amount to anything.

Have you ever stopped to think that there are times in your life when people do change, you know, when we are hurt badly enough, we can change, or we’ve learned something in life. Yes, I can change.

I mean, the Bible says that there is a time and a season for everything under the sun, and there may have been a time for you or maybe right now where you can see something has to change, so your limitations don’t always have to be the limitations.

It was Lucille Ball was once asked about her success and her limitations for herself, she said, knowing what you cannot do may be more important than knowing what you can do.

And that’s a good statement. Knowing what you can’t do may keep you from investing a lot of time or money or energy into something that’s gonna take you nowhere. So sometimes in life, it’s better to accept your losses, and then change course rather than pour resources down the drain for nothing. A problem is something you can do something about, but a fact, a fact of life is something often you can do nothing about.

Well, our days, there’s limitations, I mean the days go by, we’re all one day going to die.

Um, the psalmist in Psalm 90:12 gives the advice. Teach us wisely to use the time that we have.

Our gifts, we all have different gifts and abilities, but we need each other so that God can do something with us. Our resources, yes, there’s a limit to our resources, our financial resources. You might pray, Lord, give me $10 million to pay my bills. But we need to live within the resources that God’s already provided. You may never have that sort of money.

Relationships too. There’s a problem with that. We cannot please everybody. We can’t make everybody happy. We can’t say, look, will you love me and accept me? Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. So if we accept those facts, that will stop us from becoming frustrated and envious and bitter.

Let’s Pray

Well, dear Lord, this morning I thank you that whilst we are limited, Lord, your power is unlimited. May you show us what we can do with our lives. Amen.

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