Why do we keep saying “I can’t” like it’s some noble confession of humility? It isn’t! Most of the time it’s just us refusing to bother God because we’d rather keep the problem under our own management, even when the management is clearly bankrupt.

Not to sound like a prosperity huckster peddling divine lottery tickets, but the real issue is rarely missing skill, desire, knowledge, or permission. It’s that we never actually ask God. James (the biblical James) had our number centuries ago. He said,  “You do not have, because you do not ask.” Jesus is even tougher. He said the same thing without the soft edges. “Ask and it will be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be opened.”

Why is it so hard to trade “I can’t” for “God, You can, please help me”? Maybe it’s because pride hates the admission, and fear hates the risk that He might answer in a way that costs us something. We prefer the familiar prison of our own limitations to the alarming possibility that the One who made the heavens and the earth might actually strengthen us for the thing He’s assigned.

Paul knew what God was capable of, he said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me”. Spoken by a man who had the scars to prove the “all things” were never a cruise-ship itinerary. Asking doesn’t turn God into a cosmic butler or a banker loaning you money but wanting your first born in return. It simply ends the absurd charade of pretending our empty hands are somehow sufficient.

The shift feels hard because it “IS” hard. It requires us to stop protecting our little illusions of competence. Until we do, we’ll keep discovering that “I can’t” was never the honest assessment we thought it was. It was just the quieter way of saying we prefer our own weakness to “His strength.”

Notice I’ve used the plural “we” here more than usual. The truth is, as “I” get older and wiser and more experienced in God’s provisions, I’m becoming more confident that He can and will answer my prayers; that just because my days are numbered he has not forgotten  me; that I can still “do all things through  Him who strengthens me.” It’s not a cocky statement,  it’s actually humbling. Old men can do much if we ask!

So the next time you say, “I can’t”, think, “He can!” And more importantly,  if you think “I don’t really want that,  do I,”  ask, “Does He?” We are not powerless nor weaker in old age. Scripture interups that calculation! The pattern should not be “access your presumed capabilities then proceed.” Rather it should be “go empty-handed, experienced in His grace and love, and ask the One who is not limited by your emptiness to find another way, to open a new door, to discover how capable HE is!