Thursday, March 27

A Fantastic & Frustrating Promise

Thursday, March 27

Luke 1:37

For some verse citations, I easily recall the verse.  Luke 1:37:“For nothing will be impossible with God.” I remember Luke 1:37!

Gabriel reminded Mary that her special pregnancy would not be an impossibility for God. He Who created the universe, “Maker of all things visible and invisible” — we didn’t see that coming! — was not limited by anything except His Own Word, by which He would freely determine what He would and would not do.

It is a fantastic promise! It invites us to thrust aside doubt and to remind our constrained brains to venture into the realm of Words creating light, 90 year old women conceiving, a flooded world, three men enjoying a casual walk in a blazing fire with their Lord = Who is a “consuming fire” as well as “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” Hmmm.  Both at once… His way is not my way.

Nothing will be impossible with God. Gabriel did not even say it with an exclamation. It is simply Who God is, The Almighty One. Praise that infinitely powerful Prince of Peace and Almighty God!

I recall remembering the verse at various times in my ministry. But sometimes I would not remember the verse. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe because I did not revisit it enough. Maybe because when I did try to muster the faith that a child who could not walk or talk for 20 years, could still do it…. I found it very hard to cultivate and fan my faith into flame once again because God’s answer had been “No” for the umpteenth time.

Maybe I was becoming weak in my prayers, or I was thinking God had another infinitely mysterious plan. Something like the humility of the incarnation: compressing the Greater-than-the cosmos into the womb of a virgin, or the Creator (Yahweh – I AM – the Living One) serving His creation by being “crucified under Pontius Pilate.”

It is also a frustrating promise:  “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

But still it was a promise in which we could see God’s creative ways – not ours, don’t you know. (Isaiah 55:8) If it is not impossible, then why not do it?! Because my way may not be the most appropriate way, or the God-way or at the optimal time….

I know and believe that God does bring life from death. And that future life and body will be another new creation, different from the first, and better. Sin and death will be impossible then – for the faithful, that is. That’s not what I would have done. But I’m confident that God’s way is a better way because He could have easily done it my way… but His way was better… and still not impossible, even though I did not see it coming.