I was standing in the Ohio
University Southern Office at the start of the 2019-2020 Spring Semester. In
order to jump through one of the three million hoops required to enter Teacher
Candidacy, I had to get a background check. As I stood waiting for the attendant
to put my name through the system, I couldn't help but overhear a conversation
between three students I'd never met.
I
listened.
Their conversation revolved around
the question of marriage and whether or not each of them were considering
matrimony in the future. By the end of the (rather short) conversation, each of
them had arrived at the same conclusion: marriage wasn't for them. Since this
is an issue I'd written about in the past, I decided to seize the opportunity
to participate in a spontaneous survey from the sidelines. I silently listened
to the reasoning of each. The general consensus between the three was that
marriage was a form of bondage or limitation.
After all, wouldn't it be much better to go it alone through life than to enter
a commitment that was supposed to be irreversible?
So
their logic went.
(I've never met any of the three
students outside of class. I don't know their story. I don't know their
history, worldview, or personality. I don't even know their names. On top of
this, I listened to their story with my own pre-existing assumptions, and their
conversation is recalled through my finite, human, biased memory.)
Another time, during one of my
classes, a professor began to strongly encourage the class to get out of the
area they grew up in. I listened to his reasoning. He presented Ironton, Ohio
as a very undesirable place to live, because the prospects here are miniscule
or non-existent compared to other more urban areas. He believed life in our
area was a limitation. A synopsis of his spiel might sound
something like this: "Ironton is the backwater of Ohio, and if you want to
accomplish anything worthwhile or achieve any of your dreams in life, you need
to sail out of this irrelevant nowhere while the wind is still in your
sails." On multiple occasions, I've seen this sentiment echoed openly by
many different people from this area.
The Moral:
In both of these stories, I've
witnessed people very concerned about limiting themselves in any way, shape, or
form. The students in the first story wished to avoid the negative limitation
or bondage that--in their mind, based on their past experiences and
observations--marriage entailed. In the second story, the professor urged the
students in his class to get out of this area because he believed it was a
limitation for the individual. Both the professor and the students in these
stories are revoicing an idea which has been planted in them by American Dream
culture. What is this idea? It's the idea that limitation and bond are always
obstacles to be overcome (To Hell with the Hustle, pg. 30, Bethke). The idea that limitation is to be avoided at all
costs has become a very strongly defended principle in society. People
are very strongly urged to avoid anything which limits, restrains, or bonds
them as individuals striving for success in life (To Hell with the
Hustle, Chapter 2. Bethke).
And I acknowledge fully, there's a
lot of truth to that. After all, as offspring of an infinite Creator, we're
designed to grow, achieve, and develop infinitely, accomplishing great things
unrestrained by any evil chain or harmful limitation. God wants us to be free
and unlimited by evil.
But
not all bonds are evil.
There
are good and natural limits which should actually be pursued.
Today I'd like to submit to you the
idea that seeking to throw off all limitation in all areas of our lives is not
only impossible but is also not in harmony with our design as humans. Why?
Because, as humans, we're created with inescapable limits. We sleep for 1/3 of
our lives, we need food in order to function, we require another to reproduce,
we have to expel waste, we tire, and we age. We have unescapable emotional,
mental, spiritual, and physical needs. And that is OK. Some limitations are not
only necessary, but good. Human need is not a bad thing (
Seeking to throw off all limitation
is not the example that God set for us by coming to earth wrapped in flesh.
When God came to earth, He stepped into a reality where limitation is
everywhere. The Creator chose to become the created, confining Himself to the
laws of physics and biology for the majority of His time on earth. Imagine it.
God funneled his entire omnipresent Spirit into a body which traveled an
average of three miles per hour. He went from omnipotent presence to
toilet-training child. He went from omniscient King to babe at the nipple. And
while Jesus' humanity in no way diminished his power and splendor and accented
it in many ways, He made the conscious, counterintuitive decision to operate on
this earth within the bounds of human limitation. Think of how many times
scripture mentions Jesus breaking bread and eating, satisfying a basic,
inescapable human need.
He
ate. He drank. He grieved. He lost. He aged. He sweat.
He
didn't fly around.
Think of all the ways God has
limited Himself to whatever degree necessary in order to be with you. God
limited Himself to the room of a tent in the wilderness. He's confined Himself
to the form of a human. He houses His entire presence within the space of our
soul. He limits Himself to our fractured perception of masculinity and
fatherhood by calling Himself Abba. He limits himself to being understood
through the limitations of the human mind. He limits himself to work with you
rather than do everything Himself. To me, that says limitation is not always something
to be avoided but can sometimes be necessary and good.
Disclaimer:
I am definitely not saying that limitations, confinements, and bonds are always good. There are many evil distortions of what a healthy limit is. There are plenty of bonds that I can think of which are obstacles to be overcome. If a bond or a limitation is evil or hurtful, it undoubtedly needs to be broken. When I describe a bond or limit as a positive thing, I am not talking about evil bonds; I'm talking about good limits. As God's children, we're not supposed to be powerless little peons running around on the earth. Quite the opposite. I'm suggesting that we be powerful people operating within glorious limitation.
Because
that's what Jesus did and does.
Jesus was constantly operating
within confinement during his physical time on this earth. Like the masterful
surgeon who saves a life through a small incision, Jesus is a specialist at
doing profound work through small gestures and simple acts. He healed a blind
man, not through a blinding display of glorious power, but through dust and
spit (John Chapter 9). Jesus did not rise above human limitation in order to
succeed in life, increase his surplus market value, or win an Olympic medal. He
didn't care about becoming the greatest carpenter of all time or the next ruler
of Rome, but rather cared about connecting with people regardless of the
personal limitation that meant for Himself. He got on His knees and washed the
feet of His creation. During His earthly ministry, He entered into limitation
in order to work healing, and He continues to do so today. I would argue that,
as His Bride, we should follow that example rather than seek to throw off all
limitations for ourselves as individuals. In Jesus, we see the embodiment of
what it means to live a life of purpose and intentionality by walking in
simplicity and limitation. I'm not saying that everyone should live a life of
monastic deprivation. What I'm saying is that there is something irreplicatable
about the willingness of strength to limit itself, submitting to potential
suffering and binding itself to restriction, all for the sake of another.
Redefining Bondage and
Limitation:
As a strong individual, the
suggestion that limitation can be good pushes powerfully against my mind, and
I'm sure it challenges yours too. For this reason, because I'm arguing that
limitation and bond can be good things, I want to provide a clarification
section and define what I mean by those words. In America, we use the same
word to mean ten different things. It's just how English works. For example,
take the word "love." People say they love macaroons. They also use
that word to describe both romance and the marriage covenant. They also use
that word to describe a feeling they get when their son hits a homerun or totals
a car (The Five Love Languages, Chapman).
With the use of the word
"love" in mind, think about the word "bondage." In our
culture, we normally have completely negative connotations and associations
with this word. We associate it with harmful entrapment and consider it the
antonym of freedom. But a "bond" can also be used to describe a
positive thing. A bond can be used to describe a soul-tie. A bond can be used
to describe a deeply emotional and loving attachment to another person. We often
use the word "bond" to describe the chain of the enslaved, but it can
also be used to describe the connection between a husband and wife.
A
bond can be good.
In the same way, the word
"Limitation" has a less-than-positive meaning most of the time in our
daily language. Limitation is often portrayed as the force which keeps us from
good things. But limitation could also describe the force designed to keep us
from bad things. Limitation can be used to describe the boundaries parents set
for their children; boundaries designed to help children flourish.
A
limit can be good.
Depending on our definition of the
words, a bond and a limitation can both be things that humanity is innately
designed to need. We can't help it. Nor should we.
Don't
believe me?
Ask an astronaut if she would
rather be adrift in space, bound to nothing, free as a bird, or held to earth
by the bond of gravity. Offer a child on the autism-spectrum the confinement of
a weighted compression vest or the lack of one. Ask a sane driver if
he would rather be buckled in or free to move about the cabin. Ask the lonely
teenager if she would rather be surrounded by a community or free of all attachment.
Ask the captain of a ship if he would rather be at sea with anchor or without
one.
The truth is that sometimes a bond
is not an obstacle to be overcome. Sometimes bonds are connections between you
and something important. That's why scripture discusses the bondage of servanthood and the bondage of the believer to Jesus in positive ways (1st Corinthians 7, Romans 7). Humans are innately designed to bind themselves to
something. That's why you can't look outside the window of a moving car without
fixing your gaze on a specific point. As humans, we're designed to fixate,
focus, cleave, and latch to people and externalities. In today's culture of limit-defying and
bondage-breaking, we're no less free from "bonds" than we've ever
been; we've just bound ourselves to the wrong thing. We've bound our self to our
self rather than to beautiful externalities. Culture knows that it's impossible
for the human spirit to float around bound to nothing, so in idolization of the
self and fear of harmful enslavement, it encourages the individual to bind
himself to himself. What culture doesn't realize is that genuine freedom is not
freedom from all, but freedom from the correct things. (To Hell with the Hustle, pg. 30, Bethke) The best action for we,
as humans, to take is to bind ourselves to the right things; not to cut all
ties and drift anchorless into oblivion. We're to build our house on the rock
(Matt. 7:24). We're to plant our self on that which is firm. As Homer's acclaimed
seafarer Odysseus, we are to bind ourselves to the mast, so that when the
sirens of culture sing their gospel of autonomy, we are not lured into the
dark, boundless, space of Independence to suffocate in our own isolation (The
Odyssey, Homer).
Sources:
To Hell with the Hustle (Bethke, Jefferson)
Kevin Carden Photography
Grace Culture Podcast #81 "Redeeming the Family Model" (Hensley, Seth)
John 9
The Five Love Languages (Chapman, Gary)
1st Corinthians 7
Romans 7
1st Corinthians 7
Romans 7
Matthew 7:24
The Odyssey (Homer)
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