Monday, January 3, 2022

It’s Impossible! (Thoughts on the New Year)

"Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets…’ Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'If it is marvelous (impossible) in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous (impossible) in my sight,' declares the LORD of hosts?’" (Zechariah. 8:4–6). 


Jerusalem had been reduced to a pile of rubble and yet, as Zechariah assured God’s people, the city would be built again: old men and women would gather in the parks and squares of the city to kvetch and kibitz; children would play in the streets. 

"Impossible," Zechariah's detractors muttered.

But we should never allow reason or common sense to tell us what God can or cannot do. He is the God of the impossible, the one who created perfect order (cosmos) out of primal chaos (Jeremiah 32:25). Nothing is impossible for him to do! (cf. Genesis 11:14; Job 42:2; Matthew 19:26).

He can reclaim a life that is ruined beyond reclamation. He can find a prodigal that is irretrievably lost. He can soften a heart that has hardened into stone. He can heal a church that is beyond repair. 

Indeed, "you will see greater things than this,” Jesus said (John 1:50). There is nothing that the LORD of Hosts cannot do! 

Got any rivers you think are impossible?
Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?
God specializes things thought impossible;
And He can do what no other power can do.

David Roper
1.2.22

Going and Not Knowing

"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing...