Most everyone in the world is cheering for Ukraine. We’re praying for the country’s victory and for its people and for the shopkeepers, teachers, and businesspeople who — outgunned and overmatched — have taken to the streets to defend their country.

God hears those prayers and responds to them. And he is surely more powerful than all the armies of the world combined. Yet for some reason, many of us wish we could do more.

We wish we could fix inflation, too. We’d love to solve our supply chain woes. And put an end to global warming. But there’s not much any of us can do about any of that.

By God’s design, we are finite creatures, and according to the Bible we ought to be grateful. Our constraints aren’t obstacles to overcome, says theologian Joe Rigney, they’re the products of God’s infinite wisdom and they exist for his glory and our good. And the fact is, God’s plans for the world have never been thwarted by our limitations. Nor has he been frustrated by our finitude.

We are limited, and yet Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Psalm 8, and Psalm 139 assure us that we are wondrous creatures, integral to creation’s glory. Such passages show us, too, Rigney says, that our limits don’t inhibit us, they empower us. Our limits reveal our God-given aptitude for creating neighborhoods, churches, baseball leagues, libraries, and cities and towns. They show us the beauty of working side-by-side with neighbors. They define our role in the church and community. They prompt us in the most wonderful ways to recognize and celebrate the gifts of others.

We are limited but, in the words of author and college professor Mark Mitchell, we are made “according to the scale designed for human flourishing.” We are, in other words — especially when we work together — capable of doing what’s needed for our neighborhood, our church, our city, and our county to thrive, and for each of us to find satisfaction in our sphere of influence.

In Jeremiah 29:1-10, when the prophet tells the Jewish exiles to build houses, start families, and plant gardens, he’s telling them to create social capital. He’s laying out a plan for them to live the best life possible, and it begins, he says, by being fully present in the place God has put them. To enjoy the richness of life, he says, you’ve got to get tangled up with your flesh-and-blood neighbors and with the ideas and institutions that affect them.

None of us can get Putin on the phone, but we can elbow our way into the conversations and compromises that shape our neighborhoods, workplaces, and volunteer places. We can’t solve the supply chain problems, but we are tailormade and fully equipped to shape the character of our city and county. That, Mitchell says, is because “our sense of belonging is meant to coincide with the capacity of our love.”

None of us can get Putin on the phone, but we can elbow our way into the conversations and compromises that shape our neighborhoods, workplaces, and volunteer places.

Think about it like this: We may feel strongly about what’s going on in Ukraine, but few of us will ever visit Kyiv. We’re not likely to leave our families and the responsibilities we have at home to play a hands-on role there. Our sense of belonging corresponds to the limits of our love, which means we can’t love Kyiv in all the ways we love our own hometowns.

For us, given the way we’re made, power comes with proximity. We are not, and never will be, citizens of the world. We’re Sally’s husband, Bill’s wife, Rob’s mom, and Gail’s dad. We’re the Smith’s neighbors and Joe’s best friend. We’re members of a local church and citizens of the one city where we live.

According to Jeremiah’s plan, these are the relationships that define us and our responsibilities, because we can’t do good or be good when we’re detached from the people we routinely see, talk to, and wave to at the neighborhood grocery store.

Christ himself sets the example. Katelyn Beaty, writing in Christianity Today, noted, “The Incarnation is one of the most radical dimensions of Christianity because it attests to a God who stoops down to the world of limitations. The ruler of the universe, in Christ, binds Himself to a particular time and place, to specific people and circumstances, and ultimately, to the weariness and vulnerability of human flesh.” In Christ, God himself took on the constraints of being human, and he didn’t view it as an obstacle. It was part of the plan, the very purpose of his coming.

By God’s design, we are embodied creatures. In his providence we occupy a given patch of land at this exact time. Let’s embrace the responsibilities that entails. And let’s gladly accept our limits, knowing that God delights in revealing his strength in our weakness.