"I can do all things..."?

I've been reading through the book "Margin", and this morning I was struck by the following insight:

"All systems have limits. Human beings are systems, and as such have physical, emotional and mental limits... Physical limits are easiest to recognize. A room of a given size can hold only so much furniture. We might comfortably put ten pieces of furniture in the room and possibly even thirty. But we would not try to put one thousand tables and chairs in a room too small to hold them. This would overload the room in a visibly foolish way..., Performance limits are related to physical limits but also introduce the factor of will...and we are often not quite as willing to accept the fact that there are limits. This is where stress fractures come from - people want to push themselves just beyond the limit of breakdown. Emotional limits are even more vague. How much straining can the psyche withstand before being overloaded? Physically, most of us could carry a one-hundred pound person on our back. But we could not carry ten. We would not even try. Our refusal would not be viewed as a statement against carrying people but rather a statement about physical limits, overload and pain. What is clear to us in the context of physical limits is less clear regarding emotional limits... you might be able to emotionally "carry" one person. But what about five? Ten? One hundred? Where should we draw the line?

In running and swimming, we continue to break old records nearly every year... but there must be an end to this, true? We cannot run the mile in one second. Neither will it ever be possible for anyone to run it in one minute. So it is in life. We are not infinite. The day does not have more than twenty-four hours. We do not have an inexhaustible source of human energy. We cannot keep running on empty. Limits are real, and despite what some stoics might think, limits are not even an enemy - overloading is the enemy.

Some will respond: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Can you? Can you fly? Can you go six months without eating? Neither can you live a healthy life chronically overloaded. God did not intend this verse to represent a negation of life-balance. Jesus did not heal all, He did not minister to all, He did not visit all, and He did not teach all. It is God the creator who made limits, and it is the same God who placed them within us for our protection. We exceed them at our peril."

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We have been working flat-out to finish the "touch-up" points on our house to make it more attractive to potential buyers. I put it up for sale online, and we've already (after a week)had five phone calls. It does feel strange to be in this land of "limbo" - waiting for our house to sell, while not yet having a house to move to in the States. At this point there's nothing more we can do than wait upon the Lord for the next step to take.