A mature wisdom is carried by a humble person who recognizes their limits. The articles you won’t write, the poems that never make it to the page, the stories playing out just in your mind, remind us that we are not just writers. We are human. Limitations are not killjoys. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes observes that the ones who constantly try to transcend their limitations are the ones who miss the good of life.

Yesterday was frustrating. When I woke up ideas were flowing. I was ready to grab my laptop and christen a new Word doc. But I couldn’t. Later something I read sparked another writing idea. An important conversation was happening and I want to contribute. No one has quite said what I want to say. But again, I couldn’t. As a writer, yesterday was frustrating.

But yesterday was also a gift.

I couldn’t write in the morning because my six-year-old son wanted to talk about the NBA draft with me before he went to school. My nine-year-old son wanted to talk about his artwork and told me how much he enjoys the time he gets to draw with his grandpa. I could have written after the kids went to bed but instead watched a K-drama with my wife. Yesterday was a gift.

Most of my writing happens in the margins. Between family, work and school, it’s rare to have a day just for writing. I started this piece before everyone woke up today and there have been normal interruptions almost every paragraph. I finished it while making KD for the last lunch of the school year. I assume things like this are normal for writers. Much of what I want to write lives only in my mind. And it likely will stay there. That’s okay.

Embrace Your Limits

My church has been working through Ecclesiastes – the place naïve optimism goes to die. But it’s not a depressing book. Ecclesiastes is about happiness. Wisdom trains us to enjoy the good (Ecc 12:9-14).

One of the marks of mature wisdom is knowing your limits. Life can be a confounding mystery. Once we have it figured out, the unpredictable happens. A reminder that we are not in control. Ecclesiastes 8:17 puts it bluntly, “I observed all the work of God and concluded that a person is unable to discover the work that is done under the sun. Even though a person labors hard to explore it, he cannot find it; even if a wise person claims to know it, he is unable to discover it” (Ecc 8:17). Wisdom does not unlock superpowers for controlling the future. The wisest people cannot explain everything because God has woven mystery into human experience (Ecc 3:11). A mature wisdom is carried by a humble person who recognizes their limits. The articles you won’t write, the poems that never make it to the page, the stories playing out just in your mind, remind us that we are not just writers. We are human.

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