17. Embracing Limitations: Finding Freedom in God's Plan

Hi, I'm Dave Whittingham.

And I'm Kate Morris.

Today we're talking about being limited.

Maybe life isn't what we'd hoped it would be.

Maybe we aren't doing what others are doing.

But what plan does God have for limitations?

Well, g', day, everyone.

Welcome back to Neurodivergence, Family and Faith.

Great to have you with us today, especially as we talk about limitation and the goodness of limitation and how we can enjoy that in God's plan for our lives.

This is coming out of a chapter in a book that Kate wrote.

G', day, Kate.

Great to have you with us.

Of course.

Hi, Dave.

Kate, you've written this chapter in a book called Parenting in God's Family, Volume 2.

So this book is a collection of chapters written by about 20 different authors, all talking about different aspects of parenting and how to think about that and do that in.

In a Christian way.

And you actually have a copy there, don't you, Kate?

I do.

They very generously gave the authors a copy.

So here it is for those who are watching on Spotify, watching on YouTube.

You can actually see the COVID right now.

You can search for that online and purchase it.

It was such a joy to be writing a parenting book alongside so many other authors because I think there are different concerns for different parents with kids at different ages with different makeups of families.

And so it's really nice book, actually, to be reading through these chapters and seeing different areas that I haven't considered before and different areas that I have been wondering about.

And now there's this lovely chapter, thinking through that by someone with some wisdom or experience in that area.

There are all sorts of topics in here.

There are things about infertility.

There are things in here for motherhood, fatherhood.

There's a great one in here on keeping our marriages healthy.

We've got things about the environment.

We've got suffering and grief.

There are chapters here as well on gender and sexual attraction and raising children who will serve Jesus.

I mean, there are so many chapters here and they're so varied as well.

That all sounds really great.

Really helpful topics in there.

We'll put a link to where you can buy that book in the show notes.

But we are going to focus on limitation today.

So, Kate, you've written this chapter on limitation and you've said limitation is a good thing.

So how about you kick us off?

Why should we be thinking about limitation, do you think?

Well, I guess for me, I was thinking about limitation because I do often feel quite limited.

I think it's easy to compare to other families around you, whether that's at school or the community or at church, and see things that you're not doing that other people are doing, or to see other kids who have capacity for something or are doing things that, you know, that your kids aren't able to do.

And so there are times when I need to remind myself the purpose of those limitations.

And so that's.

That's what the chapter sort of came out of.

Yeah, it's.

It's funny, isn't it, because we're constantly bombarded with these ideas that if you use this app or if you read this book or if you follow this system, everything will be fine.

You'll be healthy, wealthy and wise.

So.

So there's that sort of, I guess, media input, but then there's just, you know, we're surrounded by people and people do things, and we're always comparing ourselves to people in unhealthy ways, I think, to varying degrees.

And yeah, it can be easy to be weighed down by that, particularly when you're.

Your life is a little bit different to, you know, in inverted commas, normal, you know, the divergent or neurodivergent life.

You're going to feel those limitations because often there are things that your kids are just not going to be able to do in the same way as a majority of people.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And that can be really palpable, can't it?

It can be multiple times a day.

You're sensing that maybe it's a new stage of life and you're sensing it for the first time.

Yeah, I think, as you say, like, that can be unhelpful to compare ourselves to others.

But I think sometimes it is helpful.

Like sometimes I can look at other people and it spurs me on.

It reminds me to be sacrificial.

It reminds me to be remembering to serve.

And so I don't think it's only bad.

But I think part of the trouble is that we can end up believing that we're the hero of our family.

We can end up thinking that when I do put in more effort, when I do try harder, when I am able to achieve more, I can make life better for them, which often, often we can as parents, can't we?

We like a lot depends on us, but we can then extend that to saying, well, I'm the hero of the family.

I'm the one everything depends on.

And therefore, when a need comes up or a situation comes up where you're not able to Kind of swoop in and save your kids, or perhaps it's not helpful to swoop in and save them.

It can just make you feel that crushed sense of, well, what does this mean?

That I'm not able to do what I think they need or what would make life easier or that sort of thing.

And that can just be absolutely crushing.

And I think part of the problem is we're coming face to face with what it means to be limited.

Yeah, absolutely.

And before we really get into it, I think it's worth saying there is a Christian side to this as well.

As you said, it can be really good to learn.

We do learn from each other, and that's great.

But we can have expectations within our Christian culture that are unhelpful because they lock people into a particular way of doing things.

I was at a conference once where someone got up to ask a question of the speakers, and they said, how do you read the Bible with your wife or husband?

There was one lady there as well, and they sort of went through explaining that.

And then one of the speakers, who's a big name, international speaker, very famous, produces lots of resources and things, and he said, this is going to shock you.

I don't read the Bible with my wife.

It would drive her insane.

And it was just so refreshing, actually, to say, like, the question had assumed that this was the way Christian marriages work.

And it was so lovely to have someone say, you know what?

That doesn't work for us.

And it reminded us and gave, I think, gave freedom to say, it's not going to look the same for everyone.

Yeah, that's right, isn't it?

It can free people up to actually say, well, how do we include the Bible in our relationship?

How do we include, you know, how do we make sure that our marriage is centered on Christ?

How do we make sure our family is centered on Christ?

It can actually free us up to get rid of the things that aren't working in order to be able to create structures and routines and that sort of thing that actually do work for the family.

Okay, so the world tells us that you can do anything you want to do and be anything you want to be.

So why are we talking about limitation and what does the Bible have to say about that?

Yeah, let's.

Let's start at the beginning.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's right.

It's a funny message from the world, isn't it?

Not just you can be whatever you want, but actually you should be.

If you're not optimizing and organizing and you Know, rearranging things and exercising and eating right and doing everything.

If you're not doing them, then you're not doing it right.

It's gone from you can be to you should be.

Yeah.

So I think every human will realize that they're not actually doing everything that these, you know, that we're told we should be able to do.

And so I think it's a human condition to recognize limitations.

And we've always been like that.

Like, I can't travel back in time.

When we lived in France and it was COVID lockdowns, we could not just pop over to Australia.

I'm not in France right now.

I'm in Australia right now.

We can't be everywhere and do everything.

We absolutely know that.

And these limits are woven into how God created the world.

And so the Garden of Eden, they, as far as I know, they weren't flying around, they weren't spanning multiple time zones, or they were humans existing in a way that God had designed them.

And I mean, I think there are limitations that have come from sinfulness.

So sin, I think, brings limitations.

I think, you know, death obviously brings limitations.

They weren't part of God's good design in the garden, of course, but other limitations are.

And so it kind of raises the question, why did God make us limited?

And how could that have existed in the garden?

How can these limitations have been a gift from God?

Yeah, you see it right at the beginning when in Genesis chapter two, God creates the man.

And then for the first time in the creation account, you hear those words.

God saw that it was not good for him to be alone.

And so there you have a guy, and the very first thing that's not good in the creation is independence, I guess.

He can't be independent.

He actually has been made to need someone else and to need woman.

And you see that reflected back in chapter one, where God makes man as humanity in his image, male and female, he created them.

And so there's something even of.

In our image of God, no individual fully reflects the image of God.

Together as humanity, we do, but by ourselves, we're not enough.

We need each other.

But even more fundamentally, we actually need God.

And so you see it right there in the garden.

Firstly, without the breath that comes from God to animate Adam, he's just a pile of dirt.

A nicely shaped pile of dirt.

Maybe not even nicely shaped.

Maybe not.

I mean, God did the shaping too.

Yeah, really ugly Adam.

No, but.

But also for Eve, she.

She gets her life from God.

And I think that's at the core of the.

The discussion around sin in those first few chapters of Genesis is that life comes from God.

And so when you reject God, of course the consequence is death.

Because you are so utterly dependent on God, you want to be like God without God.

That is just.

That's an impossible task for a human because you are not God.

Yeah, that's right.

I think Genesis is a really helpful map of what it looks like to be creature and creator.

So Adam and Eve weren't God.

They were always limited, dependent creatures.

And created by God, there'd be dust without his breath and life and shaping of them, but they're walking in the garden depending on Him.

There's still people who are limited.

But those limitations aren't a problem because they're right there with the dependable sovereign God.

And so I think this actually is a helpful foundation for us to remember.

So if limitations aren't a flaw, if they're a gift to turn us to God independence, then it actually means that we don't need to kind of desperately be working to overcome our natural limits.

I don't need to be more.

I don't need to work harder to kind of manufacture value.

I'm given value, I'm given life, I'm given love, and I'm given.

I'm gifted dependence on God.

And so my limitations turn me back to God in dependence on Him.

And that's a right expression, isn't it, of us being a creature and him being the Creator?

That's the right relationship to be in.

Absolutely.

And.

And it's a really wonderful relationship.

The Bible doesn't talk that down at all.

It says, this is.

This is really, really good.

And when things go wrong, it's because we've grasped after trying to have all of that without Him.

And what you're saying there about our value and our purpose and everything coming from Him.

Well, those are things that are completely given without us having to achieve them.

Yeah.

So it's not like I need to run around trying to be made in the image of God.

I am made in the image of God.

And that's a really good gift.

And Dave, you mentioned earlier sin and that rejection of that dependence on God.

And it's interesting, isn't it, that the kind of the heart of sin is saying, God, I don't want you to be the God.

I want to be the God of my life.

I don't want to be dependent, I don't want to be the creature, I want to be the ruler.

And so, yeah, like that.

That whole Action of being, you know, separating ourselves from God, that sin, that should mean that we are then so far from being able to depend on God anymore.

That should mean that we're cast out of reach forever.

I just find it just overwhelming again and again, when you read in the Bible about what God did when he reaches us in that state of rejecting Him.

So we should have been.

We said, oh, we don't want to be dependent.

We cast ourselves so far from him, and yet we were still not beyond his reach.

He's still dependable.

I guess even when we say we don't want you to be dependable, we don't want to depend on you, he still reaches to us and says, oh, look, I'm dependable even when you're sinning, even when you're dead in your sins, as it says in Ephesians.

And he offers us salvation and a way to be again in right relationship with him, depending on him, full life and breath and love and value and everything.

And now as well, to be forgiven, to be adopted, to be raised with Christ.

It just gets better and better, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

It makes me think of the book of Exodus, where, yeah, through that whole book you've got this wonderful story of God showing his utter utter dependability and power and strength, all used for the sake of his people.

And the people so often not seeing that and trusting God in that.

All they can see is weirdly, their own ability.

And then they think they're in trouble.

And so when they're by the Red Sea, they're being trapped by.

By Pharaoh and his army and all the chariots riding up towards them and they, they look at that and they think, we're not an army.

We don't have swords, we don't have chariots, therefore we're going to die.

And so that despair is actually.

It's actually, they're limited, but they've had completely the wrong reaction.

Because an appropriate response to their limitation is to say, but that's okay because we've got God.

But that's not what they do.

So Moses actually says to them, don't be afraid.

Stand firm and see the Lord's salvation that he will accomplish for you today.

For the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.

The Lord will fight for you and you must be quiet.

Which I think is just such a great.

They're obviously incapable, but that's okay because they have God.

And so resting in him and saying, look, of course I'm not able to achieve this is really important.

Yeah, and isn't that wonderful?

Because if they had been able to sprout wings and fly over the Red Sea and away from the army, they would have saved themselves and they wouldn't have seen what God can do for them.

They wouldn't have been turning to God in dependence.

And so we see that because they were limited there, because they couldn't save themselves, God did save them.

And it's just that beautiful thing of they were so very saved and treasured and loved and God was on display as the Savior and glory was brought to God and praise to God because of his actions in saving them.

I think this is how we can approach limitations, to like joyfully saying in this moment I'm limited, how wonderful that God is bigger than I am.

And as we remember that God's bigger doesn't make the pain of limitations disappear, but it reframes it, doesn't it?

Because how wonderful that I'm dependent on God who is sovereign and over all of this.

So I think the, I think the way this looks on the ground is being ready to turn to God in prayer at any moment, being ready to face our limitations and for our knee jerk reaction to not be, how do I solve this?

How do I fix this?

Where do I look to grab the support, the system, the structure that's going to make this go away?

But to have that attitude of the bent knee before God and remind ourselves constantly, you've got this, God, you've got this.

May I trust you, God?

And be praying, praying through it, turning to God first.

And of course it doesn't mean that we don't look for supports and structures and that we don't try to organize and do all these things.

But it reframes that structure, reframes how we're approaching those limitations and that attitude to those limitations.

So that even when we can grieve that those limitations are there, even when we see our child struggling, we see ourselves unable to meet the their needs.

We can grieve that brokenness of this world without grieving that it's all lost or it's all out of control.

Because we know that there's a joy in being dependent on the dependable God.

Absolutely.

And another thing that's really important is keeping God's priorities in mind for what we want for our children.

So we keep being bombarded with all sorts of things, of saying, this is going to be good for your child, this is going to be good for your child.

And sometimes I listen to parents and think, farah, when do you sleep?

Because they're taking them from the cello lesson to the swimming lesson, to the camp to the whatever.

And I think there can be something in there of if I give my child every opportunity, then that will result in a good adult, whatever good might be there.

But I think we need to come back and say, okay, what does God say is good?

What does God want for our children?

God wants our children to love him and to love others through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so that's the key, and that's center to what we want to achieve for our children.

Now, sometimes we might give them things that are going to help them to do that in particular ways, but they don't have to have everything.

So sometimes we can.

Even if we know that we're limited, we somehow don't want our children to be limited.

And so we want to give them everything but actually say, okay, who is my child?

How am I helping them to love God and love others?

Is this going to add to that or is this going to take it away or become a distraction or become a discouragement that can help us make decisions about what's good for our child and what isn't.

That's right.

And yeah, what you say there about actually teaching them that they're limited as well is such an important lesson.

What I want more than cello, more than swimming, more than anything else is for them to know that God is dependable and that they're invited to depend on God in the, in the right way that we're designed to be living.

That's what we want.

And so it can feel scary when we see our children facing their limitations.

And it is sometimes.

But we have the same, same knowledge that they can have that God has got us.

And I think parents of neurodivergent kids, I think we're gonna particularly notice some of these limitations.

So we've just done two episodes on meltdowns, and a big aspect of meltdowns is pressure building up.

A lot of neurodivergent people will feel pressure.

It doesn't necessarily result in a meltdown, of course, but the pressure can build.

Anxiety can rise.

It can cause actually ongoing mental health challenges, ongoing relational challenges, ongoing self esteem problems.

It can have such overwhelming challenges for a person.

And often part of their response, not all of it, but certainly part, is often pulling back from having quite so many demands in life in order to have that time to regulate, to rest, to be on their own, to be building themselves up with things that they enjoy.

But that's all very behind closed doors.

That's not something that other parents are going to cheer you on for.

They're not going up a grade in piano because they're regulating or perhaps they're not going to learn to swim the fastest race for their grade because they're seeing the OT once a week in order to be building up strategies to help with their sensory processing or something like this.

There are different things that our kids are going to need and it's going to look like we're pulling back.

It's going to look like we're unable to be what everyone else is being.

But we're not trying to manufacture an identity, we're not trying to manufacture value.

We already have everything we need in Christ.

And so it's completely safe to say you've got the sort of body where in this season you're going to need a bit more regulation time or you'll benefit greatly from having a little bit more time with me in the afternoons.

Or, you know, psychology is going to really help build you up or whatever it might be to help them have things that are going to help them and that might mean that they're face to face with their limitations.

I'm sorry, you can't also do saxophone practice because, you know, this for this term or this season or this month, we've got some other things that we're going to do in order to pull back on some of those.

Those things.

And as a parent, I know that you can look at other parents and go, somehow they're managing to get their kid to also do the homework as well as the trumpet practice, as well as band practice, as well as performance.

That's okay.

Because actually my kids, I am learning to depend on God and to look to him for value and meaning and to take season by season through.

Yeah.

And some of those pressures can even come from within the neurodivergent community or the disability support community and things like that, where that same mindset of achievement is where you find your value.

So it can have a different sort of spin on it.

Of my child has this particular neurodivergence or whatever it is, but they were able to do this.

And it can feel like, oh, my child has that and therefore I should be able to do that.

So the Paralympics are coming up and that's a wonderful event.

Like, it's.

It's really, really good.

From its best perspective, it's saying these people are just as valuable as everyone else and how great that we can celebrate that.

But from a negative perspective, we can start to get the idea, like saying that person skis down a mountain really, really fast on one leg, and they are.

And they are valuable because they got the gold medal.

And.

And my child has one leg.

And so maybe if I'm not pushing my child to be like that, then somehow I'm being pulled down by their limitation, or I'm limiting them in such a way that they shouldn't be limited.

But that's just a really unhelpful approach to that because we're always looking at what's going to be good for our child to help love God, love others, rather than saying, okay, what are those people achieving?

Yeah, that's right.

Comes back to that kind of heart issue that we started with the comparing thing, as opposed to looking to God for value and meaning and identity.

And I think one of the gifts that come along with being limited is that we exist in a community, and so together we can be reminding each other to be looking to God.

So I think it's a beautiful thing that limitations draw us to God and they also draw us together in dependence on one another.

So we've got family, hopefully friends, hopefully neighbors, society, all sorts of aspects of life, and particularly the church should be modeling this interdependence, this gift from God of having each other, this rich blessing that God has given us as we mutually love and support each other.

Absolutely.

There's that great passage in 1 Corinthians where Paul talks about, you know, what good is an eye without an ear?

Or, you know, can the ear say to the foot, oh, I don't need you?

Of course not.

And so seeing the limitation, embracing the limitation, saying, yes, what do I contribute in this situation?

Because you actually are a valuable part of the body as a whole, but you're not the whole body, and no one is the whole body, regardless of whether they're neurodivergent, neurotypical, or anything like that.

And we want to.

We want to help everyone to grow with the particular gifts that God's given them and to take part in the church so that we can benefit from them and they can benefit from us.

Yeah, it's a great passage, isn't it?

1 Corinthians 12.

I think it's a helpful reminder to me as well that I see my own limitations quite strongly, of course, as we all do.

But the church needs me, and the church needs you.

The church needs my kids, that we will be flourishing as we're together in Jesus, as it says in the passage that he's the head of the church.

Of course, church itself can be hard for families.

And we spent episodes six and seven on thinking through church.

So I definitely recommend.

If you're thinking through how your church can better serve people who are neurodivergent and who maybe find it hard, or if you're thinking about how to help your family, episodes six and seven are really helpful.

It can be hard.

There can be sensory overload.

There can be social anxiety or social exhaustion.

There can be communication barriers, movement barriers.

Participation can be difficult or exhausting for all sorts of reasons.

But part of the beauty of this picture of church that we have in the Bible is that if part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers.

We work together.

We're drawn together by our limitations because we're expected to be limited.

I'm expected to be limited, and so there's no surprise when I'm limited.

And the church isn't therefore inaccessible to me because of my limitations.

It's actually.

It's a compliment to where I'm lacking and I'm a compliment to where others are lacking, as together we look to God for everything that we need.

Absolutely.

So key verse that comes to mind is, as I try and think about sort of summing this up, there's a verse that says, be still and know that I am God, you're not God.

God is God, and we can rest in that.

When we haven't achieved something, we can say, that's okay, I'm not God, and so I have God, but I also have God's body.

Christ's body, where I go, well, I'm also not the church.

Yes, I.

It's not my job to achieve everything that the church needs to achieve.

I'm a part of that, and so I can rest in that and enjoy what I can do and give thanks to God for that, because that is a gift from God.

But otherwise, rest.

God gives us freedom from this worldly idea that we have to be God and our own individual God.

Yeah, that's right.

And it is a worldly idea, isn't it?

It's very countercultural to be approaching limitations like this.

In fact, it's not just a little bit countercultural.

It flips the whole world's way of operating on its head.

And we see Paul talk about this in 2 Corinthians when he's saying that he will not boast about himself except about his weaknesses.

Hang on, that's exactly the opposite.

We don't.

We hush up our weaknesses.

We boast in our strengths.

He explains in 2 Corinthians 12, 9 why he's able to boast in weakness.

He says, God, he says, God said to me, my grace is sufficient for you.

My power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest on me.

It's that flipping around.

He says a bit after this, for when I'm weak, then I'm strong.

That's the opposite.

And it's what we boast in because we're strong, because we're depending on God, who is so powerful.

My weakness isn't actually a limitation at all, and it's a gift.

And that's why.

Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

Paul today, if we saw his ministry, I think a lot of the time people would say he's a bit of a failure.

Church has rejected him, kicked him out.

They didn't want to hear from him.

You know, the Corinthians were frustrated by his first letter, and they're like, oh, we don't really want him to visit us.

And the Galatians, yeah, there are lots of people that just turned away from him.

At the end of his life, he said, pretty much everyone's abandoned me.

But how much has God done through the apostle?

So much.

And Paul can say, that is God's work.

And that's.

Yes, that's right.

And God did do so much through him, and yet it's not even at the.

So much through him that he's pointing at.

He's pointing at his weakness in saying, this is how I see that God's strong.

And so even I think.

I think we'll have times in life where there might not be something we can point at and say, well, look what God's doing through my weakness.

We will, by God's grace, have times where we can say, wow, look what God's doing through me.

But when we can't, that is still okay.

That's our weakness.

That doesn't speak to God's power.

In fact, it points to God's power.

And so, yeah, that's.

That's why I wanted to spend some time writing that chapter.

I think it was a real gift to me to spend some time thinking through that and a challenge to me to rethink the way I approach limitations.

It's given me a good reminder to be praying to God and to stop looking at myself for the things that my kids need, that I need to stop grieving limitations in the same way, but rather to be looking to God and just rejoicing in his strength.

Fantastic.

We might wrap it up there.

So let me encourage you again to go and purchase Parenting in God's Family, Volume 2, edited by Harriet Connor.

And there's a foreword there by Colin Buchanan, who's an Australian singer much loved by our family.

In particular, I think we listen to his songs all the time.

Go and buy that.

Have a search online if you need to find out how you can get it.

I think there are digital copies and hard print copies.

And we'll see you next time.

Great.

See you then.

Lovely.

That's a great introduction.

Very well written.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's great.

Did I write that?

Yeah.

Did I?

Didn't realize it.

Oh, yeah.

Great.

So just complimenting myself.

Yeah, that was awesome.

Okay.

There you go.

There.