Our Limitations make us who we are!

There are times we earnestly wish we have super-powers that can make us do good things that are considered impossible from the human point of view. If you are a doctor and you are faced with a very difficult emergency and you are at the verge of losing your patient, at such times, you would wish you have supra-human abilities to restore your patient to good health. If you have a beloved family member or close friend who is in critical danger, you would wish you had powers to do the impossible and save your loved one. When you are running late for a very important appointment or engagement and you are stuck in traffic, you would wish you had the ability to grow wings and then fly to your destination. When we are faced with disappointments and unforeseen events, we would wish we had the power to see into the future. ‘I wish I knew there would be a mishap, I won’t have sent him on an errand,’ you would say. Recently, in the Florida, USA, 36 year old Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when suddenly the floor caved into a sinkhole and he was swallowed alive. Jeremy Bush, Jeff’s brother tried frantically to dig him out and failed; he had to be pulled out himself by rescue workers. Jeremy said he heard his brother calling his name but he could not help him. He would wish he had more powers.

Well, sometimes we do the seemingly impossible and we perform heroics in daily life that defy common knowledge and experience. Yet, on many occasions the best of human efforts may not be enough to save the day and at such times we would wish we had extra-ordinary abilities. From these instances, some would raise questions like: ‘Why? Why aren't we created or made with the abilities to do more? Why don’t we have the eyes of eagles so that we see much further? Why don’t we have the smell sense of dogs and perceive dangers quicker? Why am I limited in my ability to use my brain? Why can’t I do more: fly like the birds; disappear like the wind and materialize at will; jump down heights like a lizard; swim endlessly like fishes? Yes, we may wonder why we are not more independent and have more control on our lives. We may ask why we have to depend on other imperfect humans to meet many of our needs. Why can’t we just do it all?

It’s important to note that our limitations are different from our imperfections. The scriptures show that the first man was created perfect but in a good way, he was limited. He had a perfect body but that body was limited to depending on oxygen in the atmosphere and to depending on food provided by the trees and crops around him. He needed water to survive. He got exhausted and felt the need to sleep. He could not live alone as he was later given a wife to complement him. He was not a jobless loafer who had it all; he was given the job of naming animals, procreation and raising a large family, and helping to cultivate and expand his abode. He was perfect but he also had to depend on other people and things for companionship, friendship, and other basic needs of life. And this was a good thing. His limitations made him amenable to developing qualities that would endear him to others. He had love for his wife who loved him in return. He had to be humble and seek help because he knew he could not have it all on his own. He learnt the rules of co-existence and boundaries: he knew certain things were wrong and that there were consequences to his actions. He had to learn because there was so much he did not know and so many things he needed to know. There was a large fountain of knowledge around him: amazing earthly creatures and breathtaking natural sceneries. The limitations he had made him a more lovable and endearing individual, husband and partner. It made him the kind of man who could live in peaceful and loving harmony with other beings. He had a free will to make choices and also had a conscience to guide him to making healthy choices. That conscience reminded him of the consequences of his actions. Much later, he acted on his own accord to break the rules of the co-existence between him and his creator. He then suffered the consequence of his wrong actions and became imperfect. Imperfect in that he now had the tendency and propensity to sin and make wrong choices. He was now prone to making errors and mistakes which were not part of his previous perfect make-up. He became imperfect but he was not made that way. He had limitations from the beginning but his imperfections were of his own making.

Jesus was perfect but he had his limitations too. He was born as a child with no knowledge of whom he was or where he came from. He was a blank slate and was just like every child. He was defenseless on his own. He needed what children would need today. He needed loving parents who would feed, nourish, train and protect him. They taught him how to read, write, listen and learn. He needed food, water, clothes and a home. Even as a grown adult, he still needed those things. He was perfect, not prone to errors and mistakes like other men, but he was limited in his earthly form as a human being. Don’t get me wrong, as an adult man entrusted with the duties of conveying God’s message on earth, he had supra-human powers that could avail him of a lot of things. But, he exercised restraint in the use of those powers so that he could go through the length and breadth of human experiences and thus was more in tune with the human emotions of happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, pain, anger and the likes. He was actually hungry and tired on occasions. He actually felt the need to sleep. He felt the pain, the agony, the raw emotions involved in all the travails he went through in his earthly existence. The limitations he had and those he chose to exercise made him a better human being and that enabled him to be a more loving, caring, and understanding messenger here on earth.

Let’s go back to the first man on earth. Now, imagine that the first man had no limitations. Imagine he could do it all. He was emotionally contented and self-satisfied. Hence, he did not need companionship, friendship or kinship and thus did not need to develop qualities of love, kindness, mildness or graciousness. He had control over his respiratory system and needed no air from the atmosphere. He could live in isolation and avoid contact with the outside world. He does not need to clean up after himself. He could live in any environment: air, sea, land; and at any time he pleases. He does not need food or some particular kind of food; he could make do with anything: soil, metals and others. He does not need to pass out his waste or excrete waste products in such a way that would require him cleaning up and keeping his environment hygienic and safe. He does not need to develop good hygiene and practices that would keep him and his environment in good working order. He does not need to develop the qualities of peace, wisdom, strength and the knowledge required to live in harmony with other humans and living entities in his environment. He is self-sufficient and self-reliant. He’s independent and fully in control of everything around him. He could easily tell the future and thus, does not need the qualities of good planning, foresight, humility and others that are involved in securing a happy and rewarding future. Just imagine that for a minute. It’s a fact that the more powers and abilities we possess, the more independent we tend to be. Yes, the less our limitations, the less we feel the need to belong to a family or community or group or nation; or abide by certain rules and regulations. Imagine we could do all that. How cold and bitter and unloving this world would be.

 Picture a world where we can individually take care of all our needs. We don’t depend on others for anything. We have our own plantation where we grow the food we need. We have our own home stocked with all the things we would ever need. We can go to wherever we want with our mode of transport: no need for any form of public transport.  Let’s say we can procreate on our own. No need for male and female union. We are emotionally contented: no need to seek companionship or friendship or kinship. No need for communities or an organized group. No need for any governing authorities or security forces. We are capable of securing our own safety and well-being. We are individually equipped to live a wholly independent and self-serving existence. Yet, as human beings, we are part of the earth’s ecological make-up. We are part of the cycle of living existence. Think of the way the earth is structured. The trees take up the carbon dioxide we expel from our lungs and they in turn bring forth the oxygen that we need to survive. There are numerous examples of the interdependent symbiosis between living and non-living entities in this world and this helps keep our world in good balance. This relationship also exists among humans. We need each other. But what if the world was just like what I just described. What if we are so powerful that we don’t need each other? That would be bad for our collective existence. As bad and as imperfect as this world is now, the fact that we need one another helps to promote our existence. No human can take care of all his needs. Take food as an example. Some are farmers and they cultivate the raw ingredients we need as food. Others are involved in transporting this food to storage facilities and markets. There are also marketers who are responsible for bringing these items to consumers. There are governmental authorities who put in place rules and measures to ensure the safety, availability and affordability of these food items. There are communities that rear and produce livestock while other communities produce crops and edible plants. Each community makes items that other communities need and as a result, different communities depend on one another. They make concessions, sign agreements, and make peace with one another in order to benefit from one another. As individuals, we recognize the value of others because we need them to help provide vital goods and services that we can’t achieve on our own. We have physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological and social void that can only be filled by a mutual relationship with other humans and other living creatures. We were made in such a way that we depend on others. We are limited in the things we can do for our own well-being and that compels us to seek and work towards a cordial and harmonious relationship with others. If we were not made with needs that can only be served by others, it would be difficult for us to develop qualities like love, wisdom, humility, kindness and other endearing qualities that ultimately make it possible for us to live harmoniously with others.

We are limited in our physical abilities. We can’t walk or run a long distance without getting tired and exhausted and so we depend on means of transportation made available by fellow humans. We have hands that can do a lot of things. It can carry loads of items but they are limited in what they do or carry. So we get machinery that can help us lift heavy and delicate items. We can communicate our thoughts in speech but we are limited by how far our voice can go and how much and how far our ears can hear. Hence, we need a medium that can convey our messages over a short and long distance: speakers, letters, fax, phones, radio, television, internet and others. We also recognize our bodily frailties. Hence, we realize the need to take care of our bodies, take good nutrition, exercise, learn about our health and wholesome lifestyles, seek medical assistance, make savings, get insurance and make efforts to make the best of our limited existence. In order to achieve these goals we depend on other people and thus, we are more willing to listen to others, engage in constructive discussions and seek more ways to ensure our well-being.

Men have gifts and special skills in music, writing, arts, sports, entertainment, while others are blessed with a keen sense of innovation, creativity, leadership, speech-making and a lot more. No human being has it all. While we share a lot in common with others, we are individually unique. If we are gifted, it’s almost always in a particular profession or field of interest. Few people are gifted in many fields of human endeavour and even those individuals are limited in other areas as well. An individual who has a gifted voice often need an equally gifted instrumentalist, songwriter, manager, and others to produce soul-stirring music. A good painter needs the tools made by an ingenious inventor and discoverer. A gifted athlete often needs a brilliant coach to nurture and groom those talents into a successful career. Yes, we are only so gifted; we do need good teachers from our early school days to spot and nurture certain talents we display. We also need parents that would provide a loving home and support. We need others like coaches, teachers, marketers, entrepreneurs, and agencies that would provide the enabling environment needed to develop and nurture those talents. Whatever gift we have, our limitations as human beings make it’s necessary for us to develop qualities like hard-work, discipline, humility and others; we are better off with these qualities and as a result the world around us is a much better place.

There is one unique feature of our limitations. No human being was self-made. We were born or brought forth into this world with the help of others. We did not create ourselves. No human being alive now evolved from a plant or lower animal or from any inanimate object. We did come from outer space. This very fact is humbling. No advance in human science or knowledge could dispute this miracle of fertilization and birth. More importantly, we did not grow into full adulthood in the womb. Rather, we were born into this world as loving and beautiful creatures, yet weak, defenseless, fragile and completely dependent on our parents or guardian for nourishment, clothing, shelter, emotional support and other things needed to ensure our growth and development into adulthood. When we were born, our brain was like a clean slate. Even though we developed some basic senses right from the womb like hearing and we could thus hear sounds from the womb, when we came out into this world, we needed others to help us develop communication skills.  We needed others to teach us about the world around us. We needed support to learn how to move around; learn how to read and write; how to acquire food, water and clothing; and how to be part of humanity! We came into this world with no skill set or the requisite knowledge needed to survive. We thus needed parents, guardians, teachers, instructors, counselors, coaches, friends, and others with whom we interacted on a daily basis to help us gain the right skills and knowledge.

Today, people talk about the erosion of privacy and family values with the advent of easy internet connectivity, social media, new apps, smartphones, camcorders, webcams, and the likes. More and more persons are getting access to vast amount of personal and private information and data of other people. Many complain about losing their privacy. Now, imagine we live in a world where people had super-hearing abilities. You could hear whispers from far away. We have microscopic and telescopic vision. How would that bud well with the quiet moments we like to share alone or with our loved ones! How comforting to know that we could speak our heart to a trusted friend or professional confident that the information is private and no one could listen in. It would be terrible if we can’t do that. Do we really want microscopic vision to see the millions of germs in our environment with our bare eyes? Sometimes, when we chance upon an ugly scene, do we not usually wish we did not see it and if possible that such scenes could be expunged from our memories? Even in the age of space satellite, we still have and cherish our privacy. Humans are curious by nature but there are things nobody wants to see or hear. We would prefer not to see or hear or even know about some very bad or painful events. We are usually grateful when we are spared some bad news. We are better off not knowing everything.  We feel safe when we know we can run from danger knowing that the enemy is limited in the degree and extent of harm he/she could cause. We feel safe knowing that the enemy can’t grow wings to fly, can’t disappear and reappear at will, can’t just materialize in our living homes and can’t just cause us harm whenever or wherever he/she so pleases. No matter how powerful or talented or evil the enemy is, there’s always a limit to how much harm he/she can cause. We are better with our natural limitations.

Let's be grateful that God, in his infinite wisdom, limited our abilities. Just imagine we could read other people's minds. How bad would that be? What could go wrong? Sometimes, we wish we could read the mind of a would-be killer and protect ourselves and others from harm. We wish we could easily tell when a man is lying or scheming to do something bad so that we can take steps to protect ourselves. When we have this wish, let’s remember something else. How grateful we are that other people can’t read our minds. We come across lots of people every day, some we like and some we don’t like but we feel safe with the knowledge that they don’t know what we are thinking. Even when we love someone, we are assured that our secret is safe with us until we are ready or until when it’s proper to reveal our inward thoughts to that person or someone else. Don’t we feel violated and our privacy invaded when an unauthorized individual gains access to personal information that we thought were private and confidential? Even when our friends or loved ones look through our phones or messages without our permission, we get upset. We respect the privacy of others because we expect them to respect our privacy in return. How we cherish private moments when we shut out the world outside and have refreshing rest; confident that no other human can peer into our privacy at will. So, when we’re exasperated by our limitations, like when we can't prevent harm from coming to someone we love, let's remember the harm that others can do were they empowered to fly, read minds, become invisible, and the likes. Let's not blame God that we're limited but let’s be grateful for the amazing qualities we possess and recognize that there is a higher goal and purpose in our collective existential limitations! Indeed, we are better off with our limitations.