Impossible situations

by Tami Rudkin
Tuesday, January 8, 2008 2:56 PM MST

Have you ever faced such gigantic odds that you knew defeat was inevitable? Have you ever failed so big that you intuitively understood that no matter what you did, you’d never regain that lost ground?

Have you ever been so sick that death seemed like the better option?

Impossible situations. Times when nothing is going right and you can’t figure out what to do. It’s in those crisis moments that I begin to think, “This is big, and I need big help. Who will I turn to? Who can help me now?”

I never have to look far because I believe in a God who specializes in impossible circumstances. He is the God of boundlessness, the God of new beginnings, the God of impossible situations.

The widow had nothing left. Her husband had died, and she was left destitute. Creditors were coming to take her two young sons. They would sell them into slavery to pay the debt. They were going to take her joy, her laughter, and her rough-housing, tousled-haired loves.

Her situation looked perilous. Hopelessness knocked at her door. But, her God was a God of impossible situations.

All the widow had of value was a little oil when the prophet Elisha told her to collect as many jars as she could. Behind closed doors, she took the precious drops of oil and miraculously filled one jar after another until every jar was full.

When the jars were brimming, the oil stopped flowing. The stunned widow asked the prophet what do to with all the oil. His response was simple, “Take the oil and sell it. Pay your debts, and you and your boys can live on the rest.”

A desperate woman trapped in poverty turned to a God who was big enough to meet her needs.

The Bible is full of people who faced impossible odds, and they called upon an awesome God who came to them in their hour of need.

Think of the Israelites and the walls of Jericho. A fortress they could never penetrate, but God had them march and the walls crumbled down before them.

Think of David who failed morally with Bathsheba. David called out to God for forgiveness, and God referred to David as a man after his own heart.

Think of the disciples tossed violently on the raging Sea of Galilee. Fearing for their lives, they cried out to God. Jesus commanded the sea to calm, and the men witnessed the creator bring the creation into submission.

Impossible situations. Enemies of our spirit that stand tall and mighty like the walls of Jericho. Moral failure that haunts men and women of faith. Acts of nature that no one can control.

Our God is a big God capable of conquering those things in our lives that seek to defeat us and destroy us. Our God is a mighty God, willing to extend forgiveness for the biggest blunders of sin imaginable.

Our God is an awesome God, able to command the forces of nature into submission.

These stories of impossible situations have one thing in common. The people cried out to God. They didn’t form perfectly versed prayers offered in formal sanctuaries.

They cried; they fell to their knees; they begged God to help them. They faced impossible situations, and they cried out to the only One who could help them … the God of the impossible.

What do you face today? Have you cried out to God?

(Larry and Linda Kloster sponsor this column.)

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