21 Feb No Limits

In 1994, I started my first ever, full time, after college “real job”. I was so excited! I remember decorating my cubicle with about one hundred different Scriptures and pictures and I even posted a Prayer Request list that I could refer to while I was waiting on hold to speak with a customer. Since I was on the phone for almost 5 hours each day, I had plenty of waiting time on hold. So as I met each person, I invited them to stop by and write down their prayer requests for me. Keep in mind that this was at Dun & Bradstreet, a secular company who unknowingly had just hired a fired up, born again Christian who had never heard of political correctness.

The Lord had placed me directly across from a lady in her mid-twenties who was an atheist. Heather and I could hear everything that each other said during the entire day. There was no privacy. There was, however, a severe disdain on her part for twenty-one year old, bubbly, talkative Christians. She never once said “hello” or smiled at me. Her only ever reply was silence and the occasional grunt. From day one, I knew God had placed me at that specific spot, at that specific time, just like He always does. I immediately made Heather my priority. I was determined to win her over.

For over a year, I prayed for her and also made her my number one prayer request at our church. After some time, I was told to “move on”, “don’t cast your pearls before swine”, “some people are just going to hate you, and that’s ok”. I could see and understand all of these points. But the problem was that I didn’t feel tired of dealing with her nasty comments. I didn’t feel bitter, or upset, or hurt. I used to think to myself, “I SHOULD have my feelings hurt by her behavior. I SHOULD hate having to sit next to such a rude person”. But the Lord had put such a love in my heart for her and so much joy in Him that I never actually felt anything negative from the situation. Even my manager offered to move my seat because he could see the mistreatment but I declined. It truly didn’t bother me! After a year of working together, Heather moved to the beach and I almost couldn’t believe what happened on her last day. She looked me in the eyes for the first time and said, “You’re my favorite person in this whole place.” Then she hugged me! She left without saying a word to anyone else and I became the only person to stay in touch with her from our entire office.

This situation is one of many that I have experienced throughout my walk with the Lord in which I have seen God’s limitless character. He is beyond any limit, and if we are truly living IN Him we too will not feel limits. There is no limit on forgiveness when you are hidden in the shadow of the Almighty. God himself is the breath of all mankind. Instead of living in the world and calculating out the amount of forgiveness we can legitimately offer, we can literally draw from His limitless supply. This happens when we stop living our own separate life, albeit as a Christian, and live instead as Jesus described in John 17 “that they may all be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

I think this is a hard concept to understand until you experience it. But this kind of life is available to any believer! We can give more than humanly possible, we can love more than humanly possible, we can forgive more than humanly possible. We can live in the realm of the supernatural instead of the natural. The Lord showed me a dream years ago to describe this type of Spirit-infused living. In the dream, I was asleep and then I woke up and started to go about my day, but I wasn’t able to walk! My body was literally a mass of flesh and skin with no life in it. It was kind of like an amoeba looking blob and I didn’t even have the strength to lift an arm. I also had nothing in my brain J There were no thoughts or ideas or words. It was a terrible feeling. Then God graciously walked into the room and grabbed my face and breathed his breath into my nostrils. It felt like the most glorious and refreshing air you could ever imagine. Immediately, I was standing upright, full of strength, energy, ideas, love, knowledge, LIFE.

1 John 5:12 says, “He who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” And this isn’t just talking about life versus death. This life is the supernatural, limitless, in love with Jesus, dependence on Him for every breath, thought, idea, or task, kind of life. When we hide in His shadow, and let him breathe into us, we will be able to forgive without it being so difficult, people won’t offend us anymore, we will serve and give and not grow weary.

But there is ONE area in which He is limitless and we are not: temptation. Jesus could have been tempted a million times by the devil in Matthew 4, and He would still have never sinned. But I know that we cannot play around with temptation. Sin always comes through temptation first. Cain didn’t kill Abel when he first became angry, but he was given a warning first. When we are tempted, there is no question…we must take that thought captive and immediately rebuke it in the name of Jesus. Over and over again, no matter how many times it occurs. We can’t let sin seep in and steal our very life. Sin always destroys, yet the Lord always creates.

I don’t know where Heather is today. But I do know that she taught me an amazing lesson for my life. No matter what I am “supposed” to feel or what society tells me is enough, I don’t have to live by those rules when I am IN Christ. Living in Him is the best life we can ever live.

Pam Burton