Impossible?

IMPOSSIBLE?

Look at this picture of a ship in a bottle. I’m sure you have seen real ones in gift shops, restaurants, or people’s homes. It seems impossible for a ship to get inside a bottle. Yet we know it isn’t impossible because we have seen them many times. So how do they do it? It’s actually very simple. They start by making the ship’s hull small enough to fit through the neck of the bottle. Then they build the sails and masts collapsible and pull them into position with strings or threads. That’s all there is to it.

Unfortunately life’s challenges aren’t that simple. Chances are you are facing some kind of a challenge that seems impossible. If you aren’t, you know someone who is. Perhaps it’s paying for a college education. Or maybe you’re trying to survive a divorce? Or take care of your aging parent. Or overcome an addiction. Or get through the holidays without your spouse who died earlier this year. When big challenges stand in your path you might feel like there’s just no hope. But I want to encourage you to not give up by pointing to three biblical examples.

The first is Abraham, along with his wife, Sarah. They were so old that she referred to herself as “shriveled up” and to Abraham as simply “old” (Genesis 18:12). In other words, she knew they were physically too old to have a child. Nevertheless, the Lord told them they would have a son together: “Is anything impossible for the LORD? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son” (Genesis 18:14). Sure enough, “Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him” (Genesis 21:2). Abraham was 100 years old (Genesis 21:5) and Sarah was at least 90 (Genesis 17:17).

The second example comes from the time Jesus taught his disciples that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). His disciples responded with astonishment in the next verse by asking, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus answered, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

The third example comes from Jesus’ mother, Mary. An angel came to her and revealed to her that she would give birth without being with a man because, as the angel put it, “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:31-37).

No doubt you see the theme in each account… NOTHING is impossible with God! We don’t know how he does it, but somehow he comes through and accomplishes good in the midst of seemingly impossible situations. What should we do in light of this reality? We should trust and obey, as the old hymn of John H. Sammis says. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”