This is the bite-sized new devotional that practically unpacks one of my top 5 favorite books of all-time, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News.

https://www.amazon.com/You-Were-Never-Meant-All/dp/1540968987

This devotional based on this book has been very helpful to me in many ways. I wrote about it in my notes on Genesis 1-3. It is about thanking God that we are not God, never were meant to be God, seeing our dependence on Him, others and creation as a good thing, and embracing all the goodness of God’s created, material world.

It ties to perfectionism and the route out of it to freedom from this vice:

“You want freedom from never measuring up? You want freedom from the lie of perfectionism? Love your finitude. God does. And love his material world in a way of worship of the Good Creator. Love your dependency on him, his world, and his people. Repent for trying to find meaning and satisfaction and purpose apart from God through your work and your possessions and your relationships. But do not repent for your inability to get God-sized lists done. You are human. You will get tired. Tired is not sin. Jesus was wiped out asleep in the front of a boat – in a storm – after a full day of work and serving. Don’t set unrealistic expectations that no mere mortal could accomplish in two lifetimes. That is being God. One author writes: “Think about what makes you tired at the end of a typical day. Chances are it’s not the work you completed, it’s the work you didn’t get done that saps your mental energy. So what invigorates you then? It’s what you accomplished; it’s the yard you mowed. That’s work, too, but satisfying and rewarding.” Unrealistic goals not only betray our brokenness but make us exhausted.

The world certainly broke at the fall. When Adam and Eve took of the fruit and believed this lie from Satan to be God with no limits because God was truly not out for their good, the cosmos broke. Our relationship with God was over by sin, the world broke, we broke in our relationship with others, and we broke in our relationship to ourselves. So that leads us to great question number four: How does ‘here’ get fixed? God forgives. He is the Redeemer. He does something about our broken state. This is foretold in Genesis 3:15: at great expense to himself, the Infinite by becoming flesh – material – Jesus pays our infinite offense by his death and give us his merit, his righteousness by his life.

And real shalom in the best sense of the word is coming. He WILL undo all the brokenness and set all things right. God will one day restore. That is the answer to great question number five, “Where is ‘here’ going?” The restoration of all things is coming. It is being restored back to the garden of Eden into a city, and its material not on clouds. Jesus’ kingdom has arrived as he says in Mark 1. He is re-creating all things new. He will not stop until all is restored. There is a redone, restored, re-created, new material heavens and earth coming.” – Genesis 1-3 Notes.

Enjoy this devotional and order early AND often, great gifts for others as well.

– E