But that's Impossible
Good Morning,
Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. Jer. 32:17
What is it in your life that you don’t think God can do? And before you say nothing, ask yourself if the pattern of your obedience demonstrates that. I’m not talking about God doing things we think are hard or really challenging. I’m talking about things we have absolutely no way of seeing come about.
One of the ways God grows our faith is by asking us to be obedient to things we consider, for all practical purposes, impossible. It is the pattern of Scripture. He takes willing, yet ordinary and ill-equipped people and does something extraordinary. This does two things. It strengthens our faith and reaffirms to us that nothing is impossible when God is at the center of it. It also points people to Him. Onlookers observe that there is no other explanation except something supernatural and divine.
The primary obstacle to us experiencing this level of God’s grandeur in our lives is that we don’t give him the chance. We judge whether to be obedient by based on if we can bring about the results ourselves. Yet when God asks us to do something like this, he isn’t dependent on our incredible skill. He simply needs us to say yes. In Numbers 11:21-23 God tells the wandering people of Israel that he is going to give them meat to eat for a month. It is a remarkable exchange. Moses responds in a way that you may find familiar.
But Moses said, “Here I am among 600,000 men on foot and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!” Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?” Moses had assessed his resources and determined that God was in over his head. It couldn’t be done. I love God’s simple response to Moses: “Is the Lord’s arm too short?”
And sure enough, God brought quail, driven up from the sea no less, and the people had to work all day and all night to gather it. It is yet another example of how God displays his might, power and provision in ways that only he can. The question is will you be obedient when God calls you to moments such as these? Will you give him the chance to display his power in and through you? Will you say yes, and allow him to write your own “impossible” story for and everyone to marvel at?
In what area of your life might you be acting like God’s arm is too short?
Live this week on purpose,
Ron Klopfenstein
