The Impossible

I have been thinking on the subject of impossibilities lately. I have several dreams in my heart that, to my natural mind, make no sense and seem impossible to make happen. I have stretched my mind trying to imagine or create plans that could bring these things to pass... all in vain. And so I turned my mind in a different direction, in a better direction. I began reading the story of Gideon in the book of Judges.

As a Christian, a lover and follower of Jesus, I 'know' that nothing is too hard for God. I have read countless stories, heard thousands of testimonies, and actually seen Him do impossible things in my own life. Yet, it seems every new situation that comes along I am starting back at the bottom of the mountain, down in dry bone valley. It takes me allowing the Lord to stir up the seed of faith in my heart and mind until my perspective has changed and I am now overlooking the valley I was once in through the lens of hope. It's there that the Lord actually begins letting me see the impossibilities of the natural beginning to live and breathe; and it's there that I see those dry bones coming to life.

One of the ways I know to begin to stir up faith is digging deeper in the Word. In this season Gideon's story kept popping up all around me, and so I decided to do some digging. I am amazed at several things about Gideon. First, he was a normal human being. When God calls him a mighty warrior, he looks around at his current circumstances and does not understand how that can be truth. And when God calls him to GO he asks the very simple question of "how?". Second, when God tells Gideon that He is with him Gideon's human mind does not immediately jump on board, he asks the Lord for proof... and the Lord appeases his requests, not once, not twice, but three times. Third, his obedience to do the crazy things the Lord is asking him to do brings victory in his life and the lives of his people.

It is easy in the midst of an impossible scenario to give up, walk away, and try to forget about it. But here's the thing I am reminding myself right now: "If the Lord planted it, it's gonna grow!" Every promise He ever spoke will not return void because He IS truth. But Gideon does remind me that sometimes the fulfillment of the promise takes a response of obedience from me... from us. A lot of the time the watering of the seed, making sure it's getting sunlight, keeping the nasty bugs and critters away from it takes hard work, it takes diligence. The promised harvest, the sweet fruit, is really just a short time away if we'll put the effort in to protect and grow it.

BUT, there are also promises that the Lord wants to stretch our faith in. These promises just take (not so simple) yeses to the seemingly strange or unnatural requests. For instance, let's get back to Gideon for a second: When the Lord tells Gideon to defeat his enemy BUT that He wants to weed down the size of his men first, Gideon's response is not "OH Lord, we'll never be able to defeat them with only 300!!!" Instead he says to the Lord, "What would You have me do?" And then he does it. He takes his men and weeds them down twice in this story. First, he removes all the men who are fearful (and that is a whole sermon in itself... who knows that when we get rid of the fear around us we can accomplish so much more?!?!). And secondly, he takes the men to a place to drink water and the Lord has him keep the men who lap up water like animals, rather than the men who kneel down to drink. I am certain, because Gideon was human, that in his mind he was thinking "well this will be an interesting crew I am left with", but none-the-less he obeyed.

Ultimately, there was victory in Gideon's story because he allowed his faith to lead rather than his human understanding. And that is what I want to take away from this. Though my dream of ministry seems so far off and I feel alone in the push towards it, victory is already there. And I will choose to say yes, no matter how crazy the request or instruction of the Lord is. There is already victory in the simplicity of being obedient.

I hope today that if you have been questioning how or been having trouble looking through faith rather than the natural, that the story of Gideon would encourage you as it has me. And if it doesn't, go find one of the other hundreds of stories about faith in the Bible and let it do it instead. The Lord gave us His Word so that we could grow and be encouraged... we don't have to live in doubt and discouragement. I pray that as the Lord is stretching me in this walk of faith, may He also stretch you! And may the impossibilities of the natural become the launching pad for more faith, more testimonies, and more victory!