Knowing what I cannot do - a step on the journey

NORSK
I'm not afraid to say that there are a few things that I can do really well, followed by a few more things I can do reasonably OK, and then there are some things I can just manage if I have to. Then comes a big bag of things I cannot do, but maybe I can learn to do them, and finally the things I certainly cannot do, nor can I learn to do them.

To the latter category, there is a lot of things that I cannot learn simply because life is too short, but there are also some things that actually cannot be learned.

I'm still on the pilgrimage together with the disciples on the journey to Jerusalem, and they had to learn a lesson on what they could:

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we …?”
Matt 17:19

The reason behind the question was that a man had approached the other disciples with his boy who needed healing while Jesus was on the mountain together with Peter, James and John. Jesus responded with an explanation which I believe was aimed for the future, and I will come back to it later. Today I would like to think that “they could when Jesus was with them”.

The focus of their question was in fact wrong: “Why couldn’t we?” They simply could not do it because it was not about them. On another occasion, Jesus told what it was all about. That was when he told his disciples that he is the vine and they are the branches, and concluded in this way:

apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5b

I suspect that the disciples thought they could do it without him, because they had done it before (1). I have fallen into the same ditch several times myself. I 'can do it' so well that I do it as a routine. But, I cannot give the life that only He can give.

The advices Jesus gave to his disciples are about how I can avoid falling into the ditch again. More about that subject tomorrow.

‘Manna’ for today:

I know what I cannot do and that makes me dependent on him who can.

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(1) Matt 10:5-8