“Listen, I have good news for you. Great news, in fact.”

A thought by John Mark Comer from his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (p. 65). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

I’m ready for some good news, aren't you?

Here it is. John says, “You. Can’t. Do. It. All.  And neither can I.”

He then says, “We’re human. Time, space, one place at a time, all that pesky non-omnipresent stuff.  We have limitations. Lots of them.”

Later he says, “What if these limitations aren’t something to fight but to gratefully accept as a signpost to God’s call on our souls? I love Peter Scazzero’s line: ‘We find God’s will for our lives in our limitations.’

“Don’t misread me: the same is true for our potential. My language here could easily be manipulated or misinterpreted to say something that is at best un-American and at worst unjust.

“But I doubt Jesus’ agenda is to make poor people middle class or middle-class people wealthy. Jesus blessed the ‘poor in spirit’ (Matthew 5:3) by the thousands, gave them the Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 5-7) and then sent them home, still poor, but blessed. Jesus’ agenda is to make wounded people whole. That often leads to more money or opportunity or influence, and I’m all for it. After all, we were created to rule over the earth; nothing brings me more joy than to see men and women take their rightful place as loving, wise, creative, powerful rulers in society.”

He continues, “All I’m saying is limitations aren’t all bad. They are where we find God’s will for our lives.

“And the main limitation we all share—regardless of where you started in life or how smart or hard-working or type A you are—is time. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a multinational corporation or a retired school bus driver, if you’re single or raising a family of seven, if you live in the wind tunnel of a global city or on a farm in the middle of Kansas without cell service or Wi-Fi. Nobody has more than twenty-four hours in a day.

“We simply can’t see, read, watch, taste, drink, experience, be, or do it all. Not an option.

“Life is a series of choices. Every yes is a thousand nos. Every activity we give our time to is a thousand other activities we can’t give our time to. Because, duh: we can’t be in two places at once.

“We have to learn to say no. Constantly. As Anne Lamott so humorously pointed out, ‘ “‘No”’ is a complete sentence.’ And it’s one we need to work into our vocabulary.”

And that is the truth, isn’t it? 

Yes, yes