Day 5

Today I am thinking about impossible situations.

The readings this week in our church’s E-100 devotionals (the Essential 100 scriptures) were rift with impossible situations:

• How to cross the Red Sea when Pharoah’s army is hot on your tail
• How to convince people that you have a good plan (the 2 spies entering Canaan)
• How to lead a nation of people when you’ve never had any experience and don’t know where you’re going
• How to cross a river when an army is not chasing after you
• How to conquer a city (Jericho) with people who have never fought before
  

At the same time, I am hearing from friends whose lives are filled with impossible situations. A mom with terminal cancer. Parents crushed with a mountain of debt. A spouse with Alzheimer’s who can’t remember where the bathroom is. A woman who dies every day when her heart stops beating for a few moments. A dad facing a 40% cut in his company’s work force.

How do we get through this? How do I pray for my friends when there aren’t ready answers?

The examples of the first set of scenarios set precedence for answers to the second. God’s answers impossible situations with impossible solutions. The impossible can only be matched by something of equal or greater impossibility: part the Red Sea, dry up the waters of the Jordan, collapse the walls of a great city with trumpets and shouting.

We’ve tried the possible, so now it’s time to try the impossible.

What am I praying for? I guess for the miraculous. I need to seek what I cannot see. I need to ask God to reveal His angle and perspective. I need to stand aside and get out of the way of forces beyond my awareness. I need to prepare myself for the extra-ordinary and the super-natural. I may need to get my feet a little wet. I may need to do something stupid, look foolish, entertain the ridiculous.

I may need to get my game on in a new way. I may need to fight, I may need to yell, I may need to stand up and do something I’ve never done before but bank that God will carry it through. I will likely have to change my game plan, alter my goals, adjust my expectations. Maybe I’ll learn I’m in the wrong game.

I think I’ll be doing something I’ve never done before, something I thought not possible. And I don’t know what that is. If I did, I guess I’d be God.

Prayer: God, I need you to be God. You are going to turn my world upside down. I am allowing that - as if I really had a choice. Help me to hold on to you while you give me new bearings. Help me to let go of the things that cause pain in the holding on. Break through, Lord, with your Holy Spirit. Empower me with the obedience that makes the impossible possible.

Answer from God: It’s in the Day #5 graphic. Get a ladder. That’s what prayer is – the means to reach up, the connection between you and Me.

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