Topic: Believing Impossible Things – Daily Devotional by Proverbs 31 Ministries 18 November 2020

Believing Impossible Things

“Jesus looked at them intently and said, ‘Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.’” Mark 10:27 (NLT)

Most of us like our world to operate in a predictable way. We know what’s important to us, and we accept our own limitations. Days fly by, and it’s all quite agreeable until suddenly, everything changes. The recent pandemic ushered in so much change, we could hardly recognize our world at all.

It felt like we had tumbled into some unknown place in time. Perhaps now we can identify more with Alice as she tumbled into the world where the Red Queen lived. Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking-Glass, gives us a glimpse of how Alice responds to her new situation when she is asked to believe impossible things:

“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 younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’”

In this excerpt, Carroll manages to shine a light on one of the bigger issues of our Christian experience. You see, Alice is like most of us. She sees the reality of the world and cannot see how incredible things are even possible. Her mind is finite, fixed, and as it observes the world, it tosses the miraculous over the side and quickly declares, “It’s impossible!”

Perhaps the Queen in this tale believes as God might have us do as well. The Queen admits she may not do it enough, now that she’s older, but somewhere in her younger days, she was able to believe many impossible things even before breakfast.

What keeps you from believing impossible things? What causes you to imagine the world is rolling along, almost without hope? Perhaps the problem is we’ve become a little too adult.

The story of Alice reminds us we might be better off to adopt a more childlike faith, to go back to a time when we believed God could do anything. If we had that kind of faith, and we believed as Jesus told us, “… Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God,” then we’d be more confident (Mark 10:27). We would trust that no matter how things look, God still reigns, and that means there’s a whole lot more that is possible. God alone can bring us possibility, assurance and perfect awareness of His intentions.

When you experience the bleak moments of life that cause your spirit to sag and your face to lose its glow, don’t go tumbling down into the gloom. Instead, look up and see the One who offers you His favor. Reach out to your Creator, the One who makes all things possible. After all, your life is in God’s hands, and He has unlimited power for your good.

God wants to carry you through each dark moment into His glorious light. Why? Because He knows all that is possible for you, and He wants you to know it too. Just say it out loud: “All things are possible with God.”

Heavenly Father, when everything is falling apart, or simply feels chaotic, I lose sight of my choices. I imagine there are no possibilities that make any sense for the situations I face. I pray You would remind me that my life is in Your hands and that You will guide me toward those things You intend just for me. Help me, Lord, to believe You are God of all that is possible for me and for the people I love! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY

Lamentations 3:22-23, “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”(NIV)