Impossible or I’m Possible?
Something that is ingrained in the thoughts of many of us is that nothing is impossible with God. There are at least two times in the New Testament when this is affirmed. In Luke 1:37, the angel said to Mary “For nothing will be impossible with God.” And in Matther 19:26 Jesus was teaching the disciples and told them “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” We tend to give lip service to this fact, but when it comes to our own lives we may waver a bit. We accept that God can do anything but we have trouble accepting that He will do anything through or for us. It’s hard for us to believe Philippians 4:13 when Paul wrote “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
There are some things Jesus said that make us throw up our hands and exclaim “I could never do that!” I recall early in my doctoral studies, my professor handed back a quiz I scored eight out of ten. As I walked back to my apartment, I was dejected, wondering if I had enough to complete the degree. When I got to my apartment, I hit the button to play a cassette that was in the player. The album was by the Imperials. The song that was cued up was “He Didn’t Lift Us Up to Let Us Down.” The chorus goes:
“He didn’t bring us this far to leave us
He didn’t teach us to swim to let us drown
He didn’t build His home in us to move away
He didn’t lift us up to let us down.”
That song encouraged me, making me realize anew that God had brought me to this place in my life for me to obtain a terminal degree. He was with me. I knew without a doubt that God had placed me there, not to go home empty-handed but as a freshly-minted DBA.
I am sure this is not an exhaustive list but let’s dive in and look at a few statements by or about Jesus. The
first I would cite comes from I Thessolonians 5:16-18 “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. This is a three for one. First, Paul tells us to “rejoice always.” You just lost your job. You got a bad medical result. Your car broke down. Your house was hit by a hurricane. When something like that happens we usually aren’t in a joyful frame of mind. Because Jesus is the source of our joy and the controller of our circumstances, we should be able to be joyful. True confession time. Heather and I recently took a Panama Canal cruise. On our way home we realized we left a piece of luggage behind. I was not joyful and didn’t want to drive back to Ft. Lauderdale. Heather got on the phone, contacted some people and they agreed to send our lost luggage via FedEx the next day. I can’t help but believe that God was behind that circumstance. Better yet, they didn’t charge us for sending it. Our frustration was turned into joy. We need to look beyond our circumstances and keep our eyes on God. With God joy is possible.
The second thing in this passage is “to pray without ceasing.” Growing up, I envisioned having to go everywhere, always praying and with my eyes closed. “How can I do that?” Prayer should be our constant 
attitude. It doesn’t mean dropping everything and giving ourselves exclusively to prayer. Yes, we should have regular times when we go aside and “have a little talk with Jesus.” But we can also pray extemporaneously as circumstances arise. When I am driving around and see a traffic accident, I utter a prayer. Several years ago, I was trying to sell a house and it seemed to take forever. As I drove around town and saw a for sale sign on the lawn, I would utter a short prayer asking God to bring them a buyer. Someone comes to you with a problem. As they are relating the problem to you, you focus on them, but in the back of your mind, you are already praying. With God constant prayer is possible.
The third thing here is that we are to give thanks in everything. We often go through life with our faults and excuse them, saying “That’s just the way I am.” The natural state for a Christian is to be thankful. Romans 8:28 reads “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.” Perhaps you were dating someone and thought you had found the love of your life. But
she had other ideas and broke off the relationship. You were devastated. But later you found and married someone. You realized that your second choice was actually God’s first choice and was so much better for you. With God, thanks is possible.
Be holy. Another “impossible” statement in the Bible is the instruction “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written: ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”
I Peter 1:15-16. The word holy, or a derivative, is found 431 times in the Old Testament. What does God mean when He says we should be holy? God is altogether holy, sacred, set apart or separate from His creation. The idea is that God is totally different from us. Given that lofty definition, how can we mortal beings become holy? We are not like God in this respect – although created in His image we cannot be holy on our own. Our lives should mirror the character of God. To be holy we must be holy in all that we do. We can be holy because He is holy. Our holiness is a derived holiness from God. He can make us holy. With God, even holiness is possible.
The things we have discussed here deal with things we know we cannot do on our own. But the reality is that we can’t do anything without God. In John 15:5 Jesus said “I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” In order to do anything in this life requires a connection with our Lord and Savior. Keep the connection strong.” If we take the word “impossible” and separate it you get I’m Possible.” Without God we can do nothing. With God I’m Possible and anything is possible.
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All scripture unless otherwise indicated is from the New American Standard Bible.
Photo credits to Christian Photoshops and to Gerd Altmann, Terri Sharp, and Print on Demand from Pixabay.