Holding Space for My Limitations by Philip Gaines
In his book Adorning the Dark, author and singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson describes a habit of the great Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. At the beginning of many of his compositional manuscripts, he wrote JJ, the initials for “Jesu Juva,” which means, “Jesus, help” in Latin. While I prepared for writing this blog post, Bach’s practice struck me as something particularly advisable. My experience with this type of writing is highly limited, and my desire to write something meaningful and authentic confronted me with my own inadequacy. If I truly desire to create something containing an echo of Truth, I need the help of Jesus. Thus, I begin: JJ.
Since I arrived in Nashville for the start of Fellows a month ago, my inability to write the story I envisioned for my life has challenged me. Counter to my expectations for the program, I did not find employment before arriving in Nashville, nor have I begun working even at present. Because I was a later applicant to the program amidst a novel pandemic, the process to find work in a field of interest to me has been slow and painstaking. Repeatedly, organizations have reached out to talk to me, only to determine that they cannot afford to take on a new staff member in the current economic climate. Despite all the work I did in undergrad to be highly employable upon graduation—academics, extracurriculars, internships, and more—I have been able to do nothing to change the situation. Waiting and hoping upon God, in His perfect wisdom and timing, have become necessities; no longer are they seeming luxuries.
Beyond my personal employment difficulties, the struggles of those around me have driven home my limitations. In recent days, people whom I am walking alongside in this season of life, ones for whom I care deeply, have experienced horribly painful losses, large-scale life changes, confrontations with futures that terrify them, and more. I have no power to alter the course of these waves of catastrophe, or even, it often feels, to offer meaningful words. My experiences are so limited that all I can really do is listen to what my friends need to say and then to pray for them faithfully, but sometimes, even that doesn’t feel like enough.
When I look back over the last month, I feel like my repeated inability to meaningfully impact my situation or others’ painful circumstances should have cast a shadow over my experience in the Fellows to date. I am not generally someone who deals with uncertainty or powerlessness with deep reservoirs of peace and stability. It makes me uncomfortable to not know what is coming down the pipeline. Yet, contrary to my expectations, in this past month, God, in His mercy, has given me a remarkable peace. He has allowed me to trust Him in a way that has felt perfectly natural. And, I think, in this unexpected time of waiting and anticipation, He has taught me something: my insufficiency is a fact. So often, because of the richness of God’s blessings to me, I’ve been able to weasel my way out of confronting that hard truth. I feel that I can achieve the things for which I strive, too easily forgetting that it is the God of grace who is the giver of all good gifts. In her book Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren compellingly describes how dangerous it is to try to escape the truth of our limitations: “Resisting limits isn’t new for the human race. From the very beginning we’ve had an animosity toward finitude and boundaries. In their rebellion, Adam and Eve wanted to be ‘like God.’ Invincible. All-sufficient. Autonomous. Limitless” (147). In her discussion of sleep as a confession of our creaturely limitations, she argues that, while we sleep, “God is still at work, growing crops, healing wounds, giving rest, protecting, guarding, mending, redeeming” (151). For me, this season of my life has shed new light on the Holy Spirit’s proclamation to Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9, English Standard Version). When I am unable to create meaningful change, limited by my humanity, God is able, for He is unrestrained in His power, His love, and His goodness.
Even in the past week, I have seen such evidences of His working. For myself, He has given provision for employment that will coalesce into a job imminently, a gift that drives home His goodness to me in the face of my myriad of sins and betrayals. In the lives of my friends walking through difficult valleys, I have seen and heard testimonies of His faithfulness to them, His sustaining grace in the midst of darkness. Of course, I don’t believe that we will always see God’s purposes at work in our lives in the midst of struggle or tragedy. Some things may very well be unexplained as long as we only “see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12, English Standard Version). And yet, I have seen and tasted that God is good, and I believe we can trust that none of our suffering is wasted. Somehow, in some way, when God’s work of renewing shalom is complete, we shall see that all things are redeemed. What a privilege it is to join Him in that labor and to catch even the tiniest glimpse of His redemptive work in process.
From John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer:
Almighty and eternal God, You are hidden from my sight; You are beyond the understanding of my mind; Your thoughts are not like my thoughts; Your ways are past finding out.
Yet you have breathed your Spirit into my spirit; You have formed my mind to seek you; You have turned my heart to love you; You have made me restless for the rest that can be found in you; You have planted within me a hunger and a thirst that make me long for the eternal satisfaction of heaven.
O Lord, I praise Your Name because You have imprinted a seal on my inner being, not leaving me to my own poor and petty ways, or to be ruled by my passions and desires, but calling me to be an heir to your eternal kingdom! Bless you, Lord, for knocking on my heart’s door and reminding me of your presence. Bless You, Lord, for Your hand upon my life and for the sure knowledge that however I may falter and fail, Your everlasting arms are always underneath me.
O Lord, You alone know what lies before me today; grant that in every hour I may stay close to You. Let me be in the world, but not of it. Let me use this world without abusing it. If I buy, let me be as though I have nothing. If I have nothing, let me be as though I have everything. Do not let me embark on anything today that is not in line with Your will for my life, nor shrink from any sacrifice that Your will demands. Suggest, direct, and guide every movement of my mind; for my Lord Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
And, finally, following another of Bach’s practices, I end with this: Soli Deo Gloria.
