Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?

“Is anything too hard for the LORD?”  Genesis 18:14

Her husband is an atheist. His daughter is a lesbian. Your best friends are considering becoming Muslim. These situations and a thousand more dot our lives like stickers in the lawn. They’re painful, and we pick our way around them trying to hang on to joy. We may continue to pray about them, but in reality, we often write “The End” over seemingly impossible situations. 

That’s what Sarah had done with the idea of ever becoming a mother. Even when God got in her face and said, “If I said it, I will do it,” she laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh. It was a “Yeah, right,” laugh and God did not appreciate it. He doesn’t appreciate our snarky attitudes either. When we confine the Lord God Almighty to our teensy understanding, we make a big mistake.

God is in the miracle business, but when He doesn’t perform on our schedule, we get cynical like Sarah. We secretly answer this Bible question with, “Yes, some things may be too hard for the Lord.”  When we hit a concrete wall, we assume God has too. 

But the truth is, atheists can be born again. Ask Lee Strobel. 

Lesbians can repent and live purely. Ask Rosaria Butterfield. 

Muslims can have their eyes opened to the truth of Jesus. Ask Nabeel Quereshi. 

If God can put a baby inside the uterus of a 90-year-old woman, and from that baby, create a nation that still exists today, then He can handle your problem.

What concrete wall in your life looks too hard for the Lord? 

Is it harder than what He did for Sarah?

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What Time I Am Afraid

When I am afraid, I will trust in You. Psalm 56:3

From the stock market to ISIS to Donald and Hillary, this world provides thousands of opportunities for us to be afraid. And the internet provides thousands of opportunities to express that fear in destructive ways. Fear and hopelessness are fast becoming our nation’s gross national product. But fear is nothing new to humanity; we’ve just found faster ways to pump it into our brains. If you were asked to rewrite this verse from your own experience, how would you end it? “When I am afraid, I will _______.”

The Hebrew word translated “trust” means to be boldly confident. The same word in Arabic can mean “to throw oneself face down,” which is a good mental image of trusting God. In order to throw ourselves face down before God, we must be boldly confident of His character and of our relationship with Him. We are more likely to seek God in our fear when we have also sought Him in our joy. If we seek Him when the sun is shining, we are more confident to seek Him when the tornado threatens. But sometimes what we call “seeking God” really means “seeking a better version of myself.” Bold confidence cannot be based upon what we think God should do, because we will often be disappointed. Seeking God in every season means that we are positioning ourselves to be in agreement with the outcome He chooses, knowing that it is for our good.

How do you respond to fear? Are you positioning yourself to be in agreement with the outcomes He chooses?

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Marriage Pillars

A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends. Proverbs 16:28

Neither Lois nor Lance would look at each other, or their lawyers. Fifteen years of marriage was ending in a cold courtroom with even colder hearts. Nothing was left of the passion, trust, and hopefulness they once shared. There had been no infidelity, no bankruptcy, and no abuse. However, intimacy had been sucked out of their marriage by an enormous vacuum cleaner called gossip. Lois wouldn’t stop confiding intimate secrets to her family and her girlfriends. To retaliate, Lance had divulged her secrets to the guys in the shop. It had been small indiscretions at first. But even after each had pleaded for privacy, set boundaries, and threatened divorce, neither seemed willing to control their tongues. Little by little, gossip created a crevice in their marriage that, over time, had become the Grand Canyon.

Healthy relationships are built upon the twin pillars of trust and respect. Without those in place, neither a friendship nor a marriage can thrive. Intimate friendship is a treasured gift, rare in its occurrence and priceless in its value. When we have been handed such a gift, we should hold it in reverent hands. Proverbs warns us that the very act of confiding someone’s secrets to outsiders is the path toward separation from that person. Gossip is not the seeking of wise counsel with someone who can be part of a solution. Gossip is the selfishly-motivated divulging of something that is not ours to share. The hearts—and the secrets—of the ones who trust us should be safe in our hands and far from the gossip fire.

 Have you damaged a relationship because you violated the trust of someone close to you?

A Little Birdie Told Me

                                                                                            

A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. Proverbs 11:13

Zach had the pedigree, the education, the looks, and the personality. He should have been next in line for a giant promotion. But in spite of his dazzling interview and stellar resume, the company went with an outsider. The hiring manager sighed as he closed the file and turned to his assistant, “I would love to have been able to promote Zach, but I just couldn’t trust him. This position requires high confidentiality and Zach has loose lips. He loves to brag and sometimes that bragging includes information he has no right to share. It’s a shame. He has so much potential.”

Have you ever considered the way others perceive your sharing of someone else’s news? What seemed to you like a golden moment in the limelight may in fact have been a signal to the hearers that you are not trustworthy. That slight shading of the truth to make the story more thrilling, the "accidental" name-dropping designed to make you seem important, the spontaneous burst of honesty when you should have used more restraint—they seem like such minor incidents; yet they may have closed a file you did not know about. Those juicy tidbits of gossip may have placed you in Zach’s category, and earned you the unofficial title of “loose lips.” Now is the time to begin earning back the reputation you want. It starts with being painfully honest with  yourself and with God. Every morning, commit your words to the Lord and ask Him to guard your conversations (Ps. 19:14).

If ten of your acquaintances were asked about your trustworthiness, what would they say?

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Reality Faith

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Lilly and Sam raced downstairs on Christmas morning, barely able to contain their excitement. The tree was surrounded by packages that had mysteriously appeared during the night. “I got a bike!” Lilly whispered to her brother. Sam glanced at the packages and then at Lilly. “Where? There’s no bike under there.” She squealed with glee. “I know! It’s in the garage. I saw it last night.” Even though Mom and Dad were not yet with them, and the kids could see no bike with Lilly’s name on it, Lilly had complete confidence that what she hoped for was already hers. Her faith was more than wishful thinking, because she knew it was only a matter of time until her hope became reality.

That’s what the word substance means in this verse. Try substituting “reality” for the word “substance” and see how strong that sounds. Faith is more than wishful thinking; it begins where the will of God is known. So before we can exercise a reality kind of faith, we must draw close enough to God to know His will for our situation. This is not a Genie-in-the-Sky kind of faith, where our wish is His command. God is far greater than that. This is an “If-He-said-it-then-He-will-do it” kind of faith.  When we desire what He desires for us, we can trust that it is only a matter of time until our hope becomes reality. 

What has God promised in your situation? Are you exercising a reality kind of faith?

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Trustworthy

A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. Proverbs 11:13

After 18 years of marriage, Doug walked away. “I just couldn’t trust her,” he said. “She was always mad that I wouldn’t talk to her, and I don’t, because she would tell things I’d told her in confidence. I can’t stay married to someone I can’t trust.” Barry had the opposite problem. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Gossip was to him the juiciest morsel, a way of gaining attention. When he knew something about someone, all eyes were on him and for just a brief moment, he felt important. What he didn’t know was that no one wanted to get very close to him. Everyone feared betrayal. In the end, the very thing both Doug’s wife and Barry most desired—intimate relationships—they could never find.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as gossips, so we camouflage our delight with spiritual terminology. We share the secrets of others disguised as “prayer requests” or asking for advice. What we don’t realize is that when we do that regularly, we develop a reputation for being untrustworthy. People may enjoy hearing our juicy news, but they will refrain from sharing their lives with us for fear we will gossip about them. Even in families, there are private issues that deserve respect. Each member needs to know that his or her private lives, mistakes, and challenges will be kept private by the rest of the family. A family should be a safe place where each member can fall, get back up, and start over without the whole world knowing about it.

How trustworthy are you? Is your home a safe place where everyone’s private lives are protected?

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Unreliable

Putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot. Proverbs 25:19

We’ve all been there. You were counting on someone to do what they committed to do, and they let you down. Didn’t show up. Found something better to do. Or used the old “I forgot” excuse which didn’t make the disappointment any easier. God takes that kind of irresponsibility pretty seriously and compares the experience to physical pain. When you have a bad tooth, you try to avoid chewing with it. When you have a broken foot, you steer clear of putting weight on it. You can’t trust those wounded body parts. It hurts too much. And we can’t trust friends or family members who continually let us down.

Family trees usually have a root or two that is deadwood. Everyone knows who they are. You “accidentally” don’t invite them to the birthday party. You can’t count on them to bring the assigned item for family dinners, so you plan dinner without their contributions. The relatives nod knowingly and whisper behind their backs. “Don’t tell her. You know how she is.” Maybe you’re that unreliable person and never realized it. When people cannot trust your word, the relationship stays surface deep. People won’t put weight on a broken foot, and they won’t put faith in someone who may or may not follow through on a promise.

Are you the unreliable person in your family or friend group? 

A new reputation begins with admitting our flaws and holding ourselves accountable for changing them.