Almost everywhere we go, we come across pictures. Most of the pictures we see have a border, or in some cases a double or even a triple border around it. Have you ever wondered why the border is there - what purpose does it serve? The border is there to bring the picture into sharper focus - it enhances the main features that the artist wanted to bring out in the picture.
Our lives are pictures which God has created - each one as unique and different from the other. Just as the artist puts borders around the pictures they create, so God, the Creator of all life, has put borders around each of our lives. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have to live within the confines of the borders which are unique to our individual lives. God, in His infinite wisdom and sovereignty knows exactly what kind of borders each one of us need, and has carefully selected the perfect borders He intends for us to live within. As it was God who created each one of us unique in order that we may fulfil the purpose which He had in mind for us even before the beginning of time, as Paul states in Ephesians 2:10. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Even as God knows the specific purpose for which He has created us to fulfil, so He knows the perfect balance between the borders of our lives being too confining and too freeing for us to live within. What may be too confining for one person may be just what another person would need to keep their life focused on the purpose God has for them to fulfil.
Some of our borders are more apparent and visible than others. My border happens to be a disability which confines me to a wheelchair. Learning to live victoriously within the confines of life in a wheelchair has been, and continues to be a life-long pursuit. It has only been by the grace of God, drawing on His strength that has enabled me to live and accomplish His purpose for my life. You may or may not be living within the confines of a wheelchair, but you may have a job which places certain limitations on you. The same holds true if you have a family member to take care of, or elderly parents to tend to. All of these various situations place certain limitations and responsibilities upon you, which become the border within which you live.
We need to learn to live victoriously within our borders, and therefore cause them to enhance our life and focus upon God's purposes, instead of seeing our borders as hinderances against which we are constantly fighting. This requires coming to a place of contentment with our life situation, including the seemingly negative situations, which many of us have been taught not to do. We have been taught to fight against those things which confine us, although we would not admit that that is what we are doing. We spiritualize it by saying, "I'm believing God to heal me, or deliver me from this situation." In some situations, it may be God's will to deliver or heal us, and it is not wrong to pray for healing as we serve a God with whom nothing is impossible. But when it is evident that God, in His wisdom, is not going to bring the healing or deliverance we desire, we begin to get frustrated. But maybe what the Lord wants to do is to manifest His grace and strength in the midst of our weakness and limitations even as Paul discovered when the Lord didn't remove the borders from his life. Instead, the Lord answered Paul by saying, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Paul's response is one of acceptance and contentment with his situation. "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Corinthians 12:9).
As I have found in my own life, we can waste a lot of time and energy trying to escape our borders that we lose sight of the vision and calling which the Lord has destined for us to fulfil in Him. Yes, there will be those who will tell us that unless we are free from our afflictions, the Lord cannot use us. But I can tell you from personal experience that they are wrong. The Lord is not looking for ability as much as as He is looking for availability. Yet it took me years to come to the place of accepting my disability and allowing God to have His way in my life. The amazing thing is, once we stop looking for a way to escape our borders, that's when the real freedom comes, as suddenly we are no longer focused on how limited we are. Now we are free to discover all that we are able to do within our borders, and how much we can do and accomplish within them. Please don't make the same mistake I did, and focus your entire life on the possibility of being healed or delivered from you negative situation someday while missing the opportunities which might be right within your reach at this present moment. We have to live with the realities of today, as we anticipate the hope of tomorrow.
So many of us waste our time and energy wishing we could serve the Lord in ways we never gifted for, and therefore will never be free to do. Some people even go one step further and actually attempt to do things they were never gifted for, and wonder why they are not finding success and fulfilment in what they are doing. God has placed the borders of His choosing upon our lives, not to hinder or frustrate us, but to bring His calling into sharper focus than it would otherwise be in our lives. The more we try to fight against the borders in our lives, the more we hinder the Lord from using us just as we are, and fulfilling His perfect plan in our lives.
