But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”
- Mark 10:27
I'll be open and rigorously honest. I want to go back to bed. I don't want to be writing this, or anything else, right now. I am sick, and my brain is not working well. I feel as though I am thinking like the sloth moves in Zootopia. But at the same time, I do want to be writing this, or at least something, because it is my desire to both keep my commitments and to be of service to you, Dear Reader. And, I need to get this done so that you can read it, and also so that I can get ready for tonight. And in the continuing theme of openness and honesty, I don't want to prepare, and I the idea of standing and preaching makes me want to curl in a ball and cry at the moment. The idea of canceling also turns my stomach, because I am grateful for the opportunity to minister and don't want to fall short of doing what I was called to do, fail in the commitments I have made, etc.
When these feelings associated with being sick began to overwhelm me this morning, I had the above verse from Mark flow through my head. With God, all things are possible. Awesome! But we take that verse out of context and misuse it almost as much as we do with the Philippians 4:13, the one that says I can do all things through Christ. That last one is not about us being able to rise above and overcome any and every circumstance, but rather being able to stay faithful and endure in both good and bad, even to the point of death. And the former is also not about God parting every Red Sea, opening every closed door, etc. to make what we feel we need or want to do possible.
I love and have used the quote from Through The Looking Glass about believing six impossible things before breakfast. I get some impossible miracles that I believe every day. For example, I woke up clean and sober, not hungover, this morning and will go through the day without that changing. I have done so for almost seven years now. And that is a miracle. That is something that was not and is not possible by me or through my own desire, strength, determination, will, ability, etc. But it is something that is very possible by, though and with God, as evidenced by the very fact that it happened.
But things are not always what they seem, and those who only watched the movie with Johnny Depp may be surprised to know that Alice didn't actually say the lines about the six impossible things, nor did her father teach that to her. The book has the line, but it's different.
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
So what? What does it matter who said it? Not much, as it's fiction and fantasy anyway, but if you love the story, doesn't that little change affect things? I mean, in the book Alice is struggling to believe, not quite able to push through the barriers of false logic, despite all that she has seen and experienced throughout a book and a half. But in the movie, Alice is unstoppable, unhindered and the one encouraging everyone else to believe the impossible is possible. It makes a difference in the story, just as misusing and misunderstanding what Jesus said about the impossible in Mark makes a difference in our story.
The immediate and most central context of this scripture is all about our ability to enter into the Kingdom of God, about making the spiritual leap from broken to restored, from captive to free, from lost to found, from orphan to child of God, from struggling alone to walking in relationship with our Daddy. And its that context that comes before any other use of that verse. It's also that context we most often ignore. We try to save ourselves. We try to walk with God and obey Him in our strength and will. We try to be loving, we try to be forgiving, we try to manufacture our own faith, we try to be good enough, we try to change ourselves. We can't. With us, it is impossible, No matter what, on my own, sooner or later I will drink or drug. If that somehow proved to be false it would only be because I found something equally as destructive and addictive to do instead. It is not possible for me to free myself from the bondage of self and all the slavery and destruction that goes with that.
It is not possible for me to ever do right enough, to be good enough, to make myself loving enough, to make myself obey God enough to be His, to escape or cancel out the judgment I deserve. There is no place for self-righteousness in Christian spirituality, because our righteousness is about as clean and pure as filthy rags. But with God, those things are possible. Who Jesus sets free is free indeed. We can deny self and walk in submission to His will because He gives us the power to do that. He gave us the ability to become His children, to deny self, to love, to forgive, to obey, to serve, to become something and someone new and flawless.
And it's not a stretch of that to conclude that if God can do those things that are possible for Him but impossible for us, He can also enable us to do those things that are impossible for us but possible for Him that are needed for fulfilling His will. Huh? Let me try to illustrate my point.
I have been called to serve God and others through this ministry, among other things. I write the Unshackled Moments five days a week and preach, teach, share on audio at least once a week. Today I am sick and my desire to do these things is in civil war, with a part of me wanting to do it, and the rest of me wanting to wait until I feel better. I struggled to think. I couldn't come up with anything to share that might help me or anyone else. Then my mind went on the tangent about this verse because I tried to encourage myself with it. Obviously, it was a good encouragement, because here I am writing, when an hour ago that felt impossible. But that's one of the amazing things about grace and relying on someone else's strength rather than my own.
But I can't assume anything about tonight because of that. If the part of me that doesn't feel like preparing and preaching were to come out on top, I could easily convince myself that the impossible God is doing is allowing me temporary freedom and release from the commitment. It's not possible for me to blow off tonight and be comfortable with that, but grace could enable me to relax and rest if God told me to let tonight go. He could make that possible. But not because I don't feel like doing it. Rather that possibility is only the case if it is God's will for me to cancel a second Wednesday night message.
On the other hand, it is not possible for me to make my brain work better. It is not possible for me to heal myself and be fine the rest of the day and tonight. But God can do those impossible things. He can make it possible for me to function well enough to accomplish what I need to despite being sick. I can't do that. Or He can make me recover and heal me so that I am no longer sick and it's not an issue. I certainly can't do that impossible thing. But whether either of those happens is not up to me being determined to keep my commitments. It isn't about my will or how much faith I am able to stir up and manufacture. It doesn't matter what I do or don't believe about being able to do all things or all things being possible with God. It's about His will. If God wants me to preach tonight, then as long as I surrender to His will everything that needs to happen to make that possible will happen. But if God's will is for me to rest, than it won't be God making it possible if I try to power through being sick and preach anyway.
God can do what is impossible for us. All things that are possible are possible for God. But that doesn't mean that all, as in every possibility, is possible. God can't create a rock that is too heavy to be lifted and then lift it. He can't exist and not exist simultaneously. He can't violate His will and do something that isn't right or that doesn't further the accomplishing of His will. So, if God wants me to rest, than it's not possible for Him to enable me to refuse to do that. And if He wants me to endure and keep my commitment, then it is not possible for Him to give me peace about failing to obey.
God can restore you to Himself. He can make it possible for you to have relationship with Him, something impossible for you. He can enable you and give you the power to walk free of self and sin and bondage, and stay free. Another thing that is not possible for you to do. He can make it possible for you to love like Jesus loves and serve and obey, to do anything and everything that is His will for you to do. No matter what door seems closed, no matter what feels, looks or is impossible for us, it is possible for Him if it is good and right and in His will. But He can not and will not empower us, enable us or excuse us rising up in our will above His to do what we want or feel/think is right. It's not possible.
This isn't about copping out and giving up and saying I guess it wasn't in God's will if we don't feel like enduring or fighting through obstacles. But it is about not thinking God's power can be used by us, against Him, to do what we want or think should be done. None of the promises of God were ever meant to, nor are they able to, bend God to our will, but rather they encourage us in the truth that when we surrender to His will, there is nothing that can stand against that, even the, to us, impossible becomes possible.
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