THE LAW OF CAPACITY
Exodus 23:29-30 (NIV) But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.
In our previous article, we discussed about one law that is critical for you to grow into higher levels of responsibility and influence – it is by obeying the law of faithfulness. If you are faithful with little, God will entrust with much. Train yourself to be faithful with anything that is entrusted to you by God; it will bring promotion to you. Give yourself wholly to any role given to you at any level. How well you execute that role, will bring you to higher levels of responsibility.
Today I wish to discuss with you yet another law that brings promotion in your life – it is the law of capacity. By definition, capacity is the maximum amount that something can contain. It can also be defined as the amount that something can produce. In this article, we will refer to the first definition of capacity – the maximum amount that something can contain.
When you look at the children of Israel, God gave them the land of Canaan for their possession. It was their land. However, this land was occupied by other nations – Hittites, Hivites, Amorites, Jebusites, and other “ites” (Deuteronomy 7:1). Meanwhile, they were to take it for their inhabitation. Interestingly, God said to the children of Israel that He wasn’t going to drive these nations from before them in one year, even though He could.
You may wonder why God didn’t just drive these nations out all at once. The reason is His words. God said to the Israelites, “You are still few in number. You cannot cover the whole land as yet. If I drive these nations out all at once, wild animals will occupy that part which you cannot cover yourselves. You will start struggling dealing with those animals.” In short, God was saying to the children of Israel, “You do not have the capacity to occupy the whole land as yet.”
In His dealings with men, God functions by the law of capacity. He can’t and will not give you what you have no capacity to manage or handle. God will not bring to you a ten-thousand-dollar income when you have capacity to manage one thousand dollars. He will not give you the responsibility to manage hundred people when your capacity is for twenty people.
For you to understand the importance of this, look at it in the natural, for the natural helps us to understand the spiritual because it mirrors the spiritual. If you take an empty one-litre bottle and pour water into it, you will only be able to pour one litre of water. If you keep on pouring, the water will spill to the ground. Why? The bottle only has capacity for one litre! It cannot contain anything more than that.
God knows if you were to get more than what you have capacity for, you will waste it and/or lose it. Many of the people you see today who had a lot of things at some point but ended up losing them is because they had more than their capacity could contain.
My father-in-law told me a story of some war veteran in Zimbabwe who received fifty-thousand-dollar gratuity from government in 1998. He hired a bus that he boarded alone from Harare to Mberengwa. He filled the bus with cabbages he bought from Mbare Musika for feeding his donkeys.
You are reading this and saying to yourself, “This guy must have been crazy! Who in his normal senses would do that?” Wait! It’s a capacity issue. Give a man what is more than his capacity, he will waste it and/or lose it. Apparently, this was a five-hundred-dollar-capacity dude who woke up with fifty thousand dollars in his bank account. He couldn’t contain it.
If you are going to increase in your life – in resources, responsibilities, influence, impact and what you preside over – then you must grow your capacity first. Growing your capacity isn’t a mystery at all. Look at the words that God spoke to the children of Israel. He said, “Little by little I will drive them out before you, UNTIL YOU HAVE INCREASED ENOUGH to take possession of the land.” (Exodus 23:30). Your capacity increases as you grow spiritually.
Acts 20:32 (NKJV) “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Through the knowledge of God by His Word, you will increase in capacity and be able to contain much more of the blessings of God in your life.
Give yourself wholly to the learning of the Word of God for yourself and put it into practice. Study the Word of God on your own. Attend Church services and learn the Word of God as it is being taught. As you do that, grace (which is a function of capacity), will increase in you. Whatever you learn and get a hold of, practice it. You will see your capacity for the greater blessings of God in your life increasing.
Pastor Somandla Ndlovu
Resident Pastor – Bethel Ministries International Church
somainzim@gmail.com