Mission Impossible

Enjoy Session 14 of last fall's 40 Day Project:



Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.  C.T. Studd, missionary to China, India and the Belgian Congo in the late 1885

There are three stages in any great work attempted for God: impossible, difficult, done.  Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission, 1854

The word impossible carries with it a negative bent – something that cannot be done.  But Jesus is quoted five times as saying that nothing is impossible for God, for those who believe.  That automatically takes the word impossible out of the negative and into the positive.

One of our biggest obstacles to faith is not knowing what it is that God wants us to have or achieve.  It seems like such a hit-and-miss process of praying and hoping and waiting and sometimes getting a lucky break while other times just getting small hints that He still cares, even though He seems to do nothing about our most dire needs.  It’s hard to believe in the impossible when it appears that God has no interest in granting simple requests.

This is often because we are so deeply immersed in the limitations of this world that we can’t see reality for what it is.  Reality is not all that we see and feel around us.  There is a world far more real that is invisible, that manipulates, influences, attacks, torments, blesses, counterattacks and comforts us on a daily basis.  It is the spiritual world of both good and evil, of God and the devil. We live in this world of the invisible, but our minds are often so clouded that we barely recognize how it works and what is going on around us.   All we see is the corrupt and painful world that we were born into.

Those who see the impossible happen, are those who learn to “see through” the façade of our physical world and deal with the reality of God’s Kingdom that is accessible to us any time and anywhere we use our faith.  That means a difficult spouse who is unkind or insensitive, is not all that they appear to be externally.  Within them there is a confusion that is being manipulated by an evil presence.  They are under layers of negativity.  Our job is to bring out the true person that has been buried by the devil’s attacks, to cast out the evil surrounding them, and to help rescue them with love and compassion so their real self can be restored.

But few are able to see beyond the painful words and behavior of a loved one, to know that there is another presence there.  Most react in anger or hurt feelings when attacked.  They sink to the level of that spirit, trying to reason with it, begging it to stop, or trying to punish it in some form or another by punishing the person, oblivious to the demon that is there.  They don’t understand that they are dealing with two entities at the same time.  The real person, and the spirit manipulating them.  Once that evil has been driven away, all the symptoms of its presence will leave as well, allowing the loved one to be who he or she was meant to be.

This also goes for problems on your job, in finding a better job, for healing, for obstacles in projects or family situations – for anything.  There is a spiritual world that surrounds everything physical that we see and touch.  When we start to recognize the presence of God and the presence of evil, and then deal with each situation in accordance with the spirit behind it, the impossible becomes doable.  It may take a struggle and often does, but with persistence, determination, and a stubborn faith, it goes from impossible, to difficult to done.

Look at the example Jesus gave of the poor defenseless widow who had been wronged and was ignored by the law.  She chose to defy the odds and be her own defense lawyer, and badgered an evil judge relentlessly.  She was the refuse of her society, but she conquered what she wanted by sheer determination.  This is the model that Jesus wants us to imitate when we pray.  We, the refuse of society, wronged and ignored, should badger God relentlessly.  Badger Him.  Expect the best of Him. Don’t accept anything less than the impossible.

Our society views believers, by and large, as kind, passive and oppressed.  Today’s Christians do their best to fulfill the moral code of goodness and charity, but have lost the fire of aggressive faith that brings about miracles.  Let’s reignite the fire of Peter, Paul, Silas, John and Philip to become those who defy the odds and do the impossible.