Too Much, All The Time
How a misguided sense of our limits leads to a misapplication of our attention, concern, and care producing a society of spiritually blighted, emotionally ailing, and woefully isolated citizens.
To the frustration of our perpetual panacea-seeking, it has come to light that the steady decrease in individual health is largely a result of something rather mundane: too much food, that’s too tasty, within too easy reach, requiring too little work, too much of the time.
We’ve done everything in our power to defer or delay such a finding. From denigrating certain macro-nutrients, to demonizing certain sweeteners, to decrying certain sources of basic ingredients, the ultra-faddish pop-nutrition industry has sold us every solution under the sun. And somehow, our pants keep getting tighter.
Yes, there’s validity to each of those concerns. Mind your simple carbs, steer clear of xylitol, choose healthy fats… But none has turned out to be the final boss of belly fat we’d hoped for.
This article isn’t about food. At least not solely. It’s about everything. From the nutritional to the social, the emotional to the recreational — we’re gorging ourselves.
We’re consuming entirely too much comfort. Too much entertainment. Too much flesh. Too much pain and sorrow in the news. Too much naval gazing attention to our every complaint. Too much blue light. Too much plastic. Too much exposure to all the things you could and should be doing if only you would… And we’re surprised, given the hearty banquet in front of us, that we’re sick.
Our surprise is a curious thing. None of these observations are novel or particularly insightful. They’re fairly well out in the open. It’s not so much that we don’t know these things, it’s that we don’t want to acknowledge their influence in OUR lives. Chalk it up to stubbornness if you’re willing to take responsibility, call it addiction if you’re less inclined. Why shouldn’t I enjoy ________ when it’s available, affordable, enjoyable, and doesn’t hurt anyone else…? Insert any of the following: pizza, porn, self-pity, a true crime podcast turning the most dreadful moments of real people’s lives into salacious entertainment for you.
Perhaps IF we were to ask such a question, we might chip away at the controlling authority it exerts over our behaviors. But we’re not asking it. Rather, it functions as a central governing disposition guiding HOW we think.
I’ll have another serving thank you. It’s right there for the taking; why wouldn’t I?
Let’s talk about limits. [You mean about crushing them to achieve our goals?! No.] Limits offend us. 10 items or less [“fewer”…iykyk], 35 miles per hour, one carry-on and one personal item only. Irritating, but these are the easy ones.
What about the limits innate to me?
You will get tired — there’s a limit to your energy. Your body will fail — there’s a limit to your strength. You will err in — there’s a limit to your knowledge. You will be impaired — there’s a limit to what you can handle. Capacity, time, will power… reach, volume, discipline. There’s a point at which yours reaches its limit.
Some get angry about it, sit down and bemoan the injustice of it all. Others work out their indignation by setting themselves to disproving the tyranny of their limits. They’ll move the bar a few inches, a few feet [based on how you measure…] but they won’t erase their limits. Most of us simply refuse to acknowledge them and walk along balance-beams of frustration, indulgence, ambition, shame, appetite, and escapism.
“What we do matters. We can do and change things. But when we suppose that we can control all our circumstances, we soon find that we can’t. We don’t say the words, but we live as though the weight of the world were on our own shoulders. And it exhausts us. Behind the patient grin on our faces we hide a lingering rage about the endless demands that must be met, unrealized dreams, and relational disappointments.”1
We loathe our mortifying limits.
What if our limit loathing is misguided. Perhaps limits aren’t the flaws in the scheme but features of it. Features which, rightly understood, lead us to real flourishing. Maybe a courageous and honest accounting of my capacity and reach would free me to thrive where and when I am rather than everywhere I wish I could, believe I should, or given a different set of circumstances undoubtedly would be.
Christians must recognize the givenness of our limits. We were each fearfully and wondrously made only so tall, only so smart, and with only so much capacity. Our voices only reach so far and our ears only detect sounds so quiet. Our backs can only carry so much and our eyes need the font to be a certain size before we can make it out.
Our limits, our creaturely finitude, is not the result of sin. It is a fact and feature of God’s design in creation.
Sure, sin has brought corruption and disorder to what were designed as benevolent boundaries. But I misunderstand my purpose when I refuse to acknowledge my “just-so”ness.
All throughout the Scriptures, God affirms the goodness of our creatureliness. There’s no greater affirmation of this truth than the august opening of John’s Gospel. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Jn 1:14
Jesus taught from the boat so His voice which only carried so far, would be amplified by the natural land feature. He slept when weary, He ate when hungry, and He wept at sorrow proximate to Him.
What then? Is this an article about moderation? Not quite.
You might sense this article slapping your hand for having too many cookies and watching too much tv then calling you insignificant and barking at you to “get real”. I assure you — that’s not what it’s about.
The marvel of our finitude understood under the wise providence and purposeful sovereignty of Almighty God is that He intends to enact, perpetuate, and accomplish His Kingdom purposes through us — limited as we are. And when we give ourselves earnestly to what we’ve been given providentially, we will discover the riches of divine significance, meaning, and peace.
“...the soul is lost and saved not by denying one’s particularity but by laying oneself before the living God, letting his will be more important than my will, thus submitting myself to his purposes and plans. To our surprise, when this happens, we discover true life.”2
Allow me to illustrate where these things converge.
Envision a top down map of the United States with every human soul indicated by a dot. We each hold a cup of the water we have to give — our compassion, our concern, our appreciation, our indignation at injustice, our grief for those who are grieving…
Imagine a giant spotlight directing viewers’ attention to a glowing red fire somewhere on the map: Charlottesville, or Portland, or Washington D.C. The spotlight then commands everyone who’s watching to throw the contents of their cup at the fire.
So citizens in Albuquerque, Anchorage, and Austin throw the contents of their cup at the fire spotlighted in Atlanta. To their chagrin the fire doesn’t diminish all that much. Why? Because we are real and finite. The contents of our cups are real and limited. And as hard as we’re willing to fling it, the water simply can’t make it very far.
And the saddest reality of it all is there’s someone a floor beneath you, in a room down the hall, someone you see every week on Sunday who’s dying of thirst.
To make a point about an attention-hungry news media, you could make the spotlight a magnifying glass and accuse it of exacerbating the flames. But it doesn’t have to be the news media and it doesn’t have to be a fire. It’s algorithms, advertising, fads, and viral sensations. It’s life-hacks, daily grind morning routines, the endless sprint for the weekend.
We dump out our cups on everything the world sends at us. Conflict in the streets in a US city — pour it out. A new HBO show with tons of flesh and a desensitizing plot — pour it out. Your favorite political host; your favorite political enemy; a perfect, age-defying body — pour it out, pour it out, pour it out.
We’re pouring out all of our care, our concern, our grief, our indignation, our anger — but no one’s getting any better. The fires are still raging. The nationwide dehydration persists. Because we’ve deconditioned our ability to see without the spotlight. But the need is right in front of us.
We’re giving ourselves to the wind.
No, I’m not proposing we stick our heads in the sand. But connectivity has perpetuated the illusion that we ourselves are limitless. We’re not. Our limits were purposefully designed by the Sovereign Lord.
“We constantly think about the next thing; we worry about unfinished projects; we wonder what is happening in the news, or on social media, or at someone else’s house. To attend to the here and now with your whole heart and mind, right where you are inhabiting time and space, goes against most of our training.”3
Have you heard of Compassion Fatigue? We’re exhausted from trying to take sides on issues happening hundreds or thousands of miles away whose “facts” come from news sources we like because they affirm our biases or sources we’re skeptical of because they confront them.
We’re so worn out from trying to have an answer to the spotlight question, our cups are completely empty for the neighbor who would be revivified by a sip.
While I can’t argue solely for proximity, I want to argue strongly for proximity as a governing factor in our moral reasoning. There are fires burning in our midst. Many of them would be doused by the cup-fulls of a few neighbors.
Christian, you’re placed where you are and you only reach so far. The shape, depth, and breadth of the cup you’re holding as well as the contents within it were purposefully given as well.
Stop letting the spotlight sap you of the compassion and care that would slake your neighbor’s thirst. And recognize — I will often need a drink from someone else’s cup.
I’m not saying turn off the news, although some of you should. I’m not saying get off social media, though many of you should. [I am saying get away from porn — it’s wrecking your brain and poisoning the good relationship with sex the Lord intends for you.] I’m not saying to stop enjoying pizza and a show, though many of us would benefit from dialing it back.
I am saying — when we acknowledge the purposefulness of our limits, we get to enjoy the significance of our purposeful placement in union with Christ and His Body in pursuit of His Kingdom ends.
Matt 10:40-42 “The one who welcomes you welcomes me, and the one who welcomes me welcomes him who sent me. Anyone who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. And anyone who welcomes a righteous person because he’s righteous will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward.”
Kelly Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids, MI Brazos Press 2022), 5.
Kapic, 83.
Kapic, 133