Impossible

Now, there is a word I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.  Perhaps it is because I just spoke for Communion and that was the subject…but in reality, the reason I spoke about it for Communion is because that’s what God has been chatting to me about lately.  The reason I used it for Communion is because we celebrate a man coming back to life after 3 days…which is impossible.  After a Doctor declares someone dead in hospital they let the morgue know.  They don’t say “well, lets leave him here for a few days just in case he comes back to life.”
It’s a bit like that question:  Could God create a rock that’s too big for even him to lift?  The answer being:  Yes he could, but then he’d be able to lift it.  We, as humans can’t really understand impossible because there are things that are impossible to us…but there is nothing impossible for God.
I read a book recently called Mission Possible.  The story of a woman who worked for Wycliffe.  She lived in a tribe in PNG with people who did not even have a written language.  She told a story about a time when she took some young men from the tribe to town in a motor boat.  The boat took 5 cans of fuel to get home and the young men, thinking they were saving money only got 4 cans of fuel, so when they were about an hour away from home the boat motor stopped.  This meant they would have to spend the next 4 days floating back to town.  Marilyn was exasperated, but the men said ‘why don’t we just ask God, he’s got more than enough power (I’m paraphrasing)'.  So they began to pray that God with make the boat motor run.  Marilyn got tears in her eyes for the sentiment, but was not expecting anything to happen.  After the men prayed they tried to start the motor which sputtered a bit, so they prayed again, and again tried to start the motor…that time it started.  Marilyn figured it had started off of fumes and would soon cut out again, but it got them all the way home and she was reminded of Matthew 18:3 “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  These tribal men knew that nothing was impossible for God.
I think sometimes we get a bit jaded as we get older.  We’ve seen to many empty dreams, hopes dashed etc. that we don’t want to hope in anything any more.  Or we try to make things as easy on God as we can so he will make things happen.  But children see the world differently.
My son said to me recently (he was two at the time)
“Mum, I have a big idea”  I chuckled and said “Oh yeah?  What’s your big idea”.  He replied “I’m going to fly to the moon.” 
It would never even occur to me to have an idea that big, because I know it’s impossible…but not to the mind of a child…
In another book I read recently (see I told you God has been chatting to me about ‘Impossible’) called Elijah and the Secret of his Power.  The author, F.B. Meyer, says this (if you aren’t sure of the story, you can read it in 1 Kings 18):
His (Elijah’s) faith was exuberant. He was so sure of God, that he dared to heap difficulties in His way, knowing that there is no real difficulty for infinite power. The more unlikely the answer was, the more glory would there be to God. Oh, matchless faith! which can laugh at impossibilities and heap them one upon another, to have the pleasure of seeing God vanquish them -- as a steam hammer cracks a nutshell placed under it by the wondering child.
The altar was reared, the wood laid in order, the bullock cut in pieces; but to prevent any possibility of fraud and make the coming miracle still more wonderful, Elijah said, "Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the sacrifice and on the wood (1 Kings 18:33). This they did three times until the wood was drenched, and the water filled the trench, making it impossible for a spark to travel across.
Alas, few of us have faith like this! We are not so sure of God that we dare to pile difficulties in His way. We all try our best to make it easy for Him to help us. Yet what this man had, we too may have, by prayer and fasting.
What a challenge to my own faith…I know I have, on many occasions, tried to make things easier for God…
Let’s make sure, when it comes to God’s Kingdom, that we change our hearts and become like little children.  Let’s have faith that can fly to the moon.