“There is nothing impossible with God. All the impossibility is with us when we measure God by the limitations of our unbelief.”
Smith Wigglesworth
The Bible is full of story lines of impossibilities: the parting of the Red Sea, a little shepherd boy named David killing a giant named Goliath, and Sarah in her nineties giving birth to Isaac. Yesterday I read about the Israelites preparing to take on the Midianites in Judges chapter seven. Because the Lord didn’t want Israel to boast about themselves in their upcoming victory, He instructed Gideon to shrink their army from 22,000 to 10,000 to a mere 300 men. It may have looked like God was setting the Israelites up to fail, but in actuality, He was preparing a gateway for His glory to appear through a miracle.
God allows or arranges impossible situations in our lives not for us to become disheartened, but for us to have to rely on Him to perform a miracle. He wanted to prove to the Israelites they could not defeat the Midianites by themselves, but the victory would come through Him. The Israelites had no plan B; there was no other option but to depend on God. Winning the battle would not come because of their might or strength, but only because their God did it. This way God would receive the glory, not the Israelites.
Yesterday we celebrated Easter, the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I can only imagine how devastated, confused, and hopeless the followers of Jesus felt on Good Friday when He was crucified. If ever there was an impossible situation, where a miracle was desperately needed, Good Friday was it. The crucifixion of Jesus opened the door to God’s greatest glory, the resurrection of Christ.
The global pandemic has brought great loss through sickness, death, isolation, loneliness, fear, businesses closing, and an unstable economy. We’re faced with an impossible situation, one in which we have to depend on God to come through for us. We have no other option but to rely on God, the One through which all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). We set our hope in God. “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (II Corinthians 1:9b). Ask God to use this impossible crisis as a gateway to His glory. May He rescue, redeem, and resurrect the effects of the global pandemic.
“We have a God who delights in impossibilities.”
Billy Sunday
Relevant Reflections:
What seemingly impossible situation are you facing now?
Through prayer, acknowledge by faith, that with God all things are possible.