Tag Archives: impossible situation

Faith’s Eyes

As Christians, one of the hardest things for any of us to do is to walk by faith and not by sight. I’ve read that 90% of all information we send to the brain is visual. So it’s only natural for our brain to trust what we see instead of what we don’t. I loved the scene from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” where he has to take a leap of faith off the cliff. He looks down and sees a huge drop that will kill him, but he steps off anyway. He drops about a foot and a hidden ledge catches him. More often than not, that’s how God Call’s us to live.

Abraham in the Bible is a person who believed what God said. His eyes were sending information to his brain that was contrary to what God was telling him. No one could get pregnant at Sarah’s age. In fact, Sarah laughed when she heard that she was going to conceive. It was impossible from their perspective, but they didn’t let that keep them from acting in faith. Less than a year later, Isaac was born. He was a constant reminder to them that God is able to do what He promises no matter what our eyes tell us.

Romans 4:18 says, “Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected God to fulfill it” (TPT). Abraham was human just like us, but he chose which information to believe. I don’t know what impossibility hopeless odds you’re looking at today, but if God promised something other than what you see, choose to believe His Word. You may have to be like the man who told Jesus in Mark 9, “Lord I believe, but help my unbelief.” Learning To look through faith’s eyes is never easy, but it is the only way for believers. Trust God more than what you see.

Photo by Usukhbayar Gankhuyag on Unsplash

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The Rock Of Help

When I get overwhelmed by circumstances and things going on in my life, I do an exercise in faith. Before I panic, I force myself to remember times when God has come through for me. I try to think of all the times before when things have been hopeless and at the last minute, He answered. Doing that reminds me that God answers at just the right time, that He sees my situation and that He’s been faithful in the past. When I begin to take my focus off of how impossible my situation is and remind myself of how capable God is, my attitude starts to change.

The Israelites were at Mizpah offering sacrifices to God for their sin. I Samuel 7 tells us that all of Israel was there repenting. While they were gathered for offerings, the Philistines decided to attack them. The Israelites were scared, confused and began to panic. Samuel cried out to God on their behalf as he made a sacrifice. Verse 10 says that as he was making the sacrifice, the Philistines showed up for battle. God spoke from Heaven in loud claps of thunder that threw the enemy into confusion. After Israel routed the Philistines that day, Samuel set up a rock and named it “Ebenezer” which means rock of help.

Anytime that Israel was in distress, they simply had to look at that rock and remember that God came through in an impossible situation. It was a reminder that if He did it before, He’ll do it again. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. David knew that too. I wonder how many times he passed by Ebenezer and called out to God. In Psalm 61:2, he wrote, “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” He wanted to be led to God, but also to that memory that God saves us just in time.

When we get overwhelmed, our prayer shouldn’t be one of panic. It should be that we are led to the rock that is higher than we are. When the enemy comes in like a flood, we need to run to that rock for safety. When we can’t see tomorrow because of all the trouble today holds, we need to remember the God we serve. We need to call to mind the great things He has done in the past and remind ourselves that we are not forgotten. We have not been abandoned. He will come just in the nick of time as He always has.

Don’t make your decisions based on fear. Make them based on the faith that God hears us. Make them based on how He has responded in your life in the past. Your situation may seem hopeless. You may be outnumbered, out gunned and surrounded, but you serve a God who is able. He is able to deliver you from whatever you are facing today. It’s not too late. You’re not too engulfed. You’re not finished. When you’re overwhelmed, run to the Rock of Help. He’s there for you in your time of need.

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Believing Is Seeing

I was recently asked the question, “Do you believe what you see or do you see what you believe?” I know you may have to read that again to catch it. It took me a minute. When I see a wall, I believe what I see so I don’t walk into it. It’s usually strong enough that I can’t walk through it. When I see an impossible situation, I have to be careful not to use my physical eyes to look at it because it’s actually spiritual. When the doctors say it’s a 99% chance that something is cancerous, I use my spiritual eyes to see what I believe. They just gave God one percent to work with. I’ve seen Him do more with less.

Each of us have a choice in how we see things. We can choose to look at physical situations like that and believe what we see or we can see what we believe. I have to constantly check myself and ask God, “Am I looking at this situation through the right eyes? How do you see this?” I want to make sure I’m on God’s side and that I see what He does. I want to make sure that if there is a chance for Him to act, I give it to Him. The last thing I want to do is act on what I see because I believe it. Does God believe it?

In Joshua 9, the Israelites were going through the Promised Land and fighting against every city. They were moving in and kicking the others out as God commanded. God spoke to Joshua and gave him battle strategies. Joshua would consult Him for everything. When the other army out numbered him, he chose to see what he believed and it led to victory each time. The people of nearby Gibeon heard what the Israelites were doing and wanted to make peace in order to live. They knew that the Israelites were not making treaties with anyone so they decided to trick them.

They sent a convoy of people with stale bread, old wine and worn out clothes. They asked for peace and the Israelites asked, “How do we know you aren’t from around here?” They pointed to the bread, wine and clothes and said they were all fresh and new when they left. Verse 14 says, “The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence. But they didn’t ask God about it.” They looked with their physical eyes and believed what they saw. Had they asked God, they would have seen what it really was. They would have seen what they believed and acted accordingly.

What situation are you faced with today? What eyes have you been looking at it with? I want to encourage you to pray and ask God to open your spiritual eyes to see it as He does. Ask Him to help you see what you believe rather than to believe what you see. There is no situation that is impossible for God. There’s nothing you are going to face today that He can’t make a way out of. There’s no report that can be given to you that He can’t refute or change. It’s all in how you choose to see it. So I now ask you, “Do you believe what you see or do you see what you believe?”

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Miracle In The Making

I saw God do the impossible last week. A friend called me to get prayer for his wife. She was wanting to go on a mission trip to a country that required a Visa. He told me, “If that Visa doesn’t leave the embassy in Washington, D.C. today, it won’t get here in time for her trip. The embassy is closed because they’re under several inches of snow and it’s not stopping. We know God wants her to go on this trip, but it’s not looking good.” I immediately thought of Jesus’ words, “With man, things are impossible, but with God, all things are possible to him that believes.” We prayed right then for a miracle.

The next day he told me that they called all day and no one answered. She was supposed to leave in the morning and they were still having trouble. I told him the story of my in laws. A couple of years ago they were headed to Mexico. On the way, their truck broke down. They stopped in San Antonio and got it repaired. They continued on their journey only to have the same issue. They stopped and had it repaired again. They crossed the border and the truck started doing it again. The check engine light was on, the truck was sputtering as it had before and they were concerned about going deeper into Mexico.

They prayed and decided to turn around and go back to the border. The moment that they did the U-Turn, the check engine light went off and the truck began to run smoothly. When they got back to the border, they believed that was God telling them not to go on their trip. My mother in law remembered she had gone to the doctor in that town several months before on a previous trip, but had never heard back. She went to the doctor that day and found that he had tried to reach her. Her test had come back that she had early stages of cancer. They were able to get her treatment and kill the cancer.

My message to him, and now you, is that God will speak to us through a donkey (ask Balaam Numbers 22:28), a Chevy or an embassy. If God says, “No,” it’s as good as if God says, “Yes.” Either way, it’s His will. We aren’t to get worked up when things are happening and stop signs get in our way. We are to trust that He sees what we can’t. I told my friend we will keep praying that if she was to go,that God would make it happen. If she wasn’t to go, then He would stop the Visa from getting here. Of course, at that point, it was too late to get it here.

An hour or so later I got a text from him. It said, “God just might be cranking up the miracle machine.” I replied, “Of course He is.” The snow had stopped, they had returned to work, the Visa had been approved and was sitting on the consulates desk. They were missing the UPS envelope to return it to her so it was just sitting there. They couldn’t go get an envelope and UPS refused to take one. My friend called FedEx and they were willing to take one to the consulate. They were able to get the Visa over nighted to the airport first thing Saturday morning so they could pick it up on their way to the gate. She got on the flight and made the trip even though it had been impossible for man.

Whatever impossible situation you’re facing today, God sees it. It may seem impossible to you, but we serve a God who specializes in the impossible. He is not bound by the things that make it impossible for us. He does not panic when things look dim. What He does is crank up his miracle machine and sets things in motion so that we get our miracles at just the right time. When He sets up road blocks or tries to stop us, He knows what lies ahead and the miracle is that He prevents us from walking into a trap by any means possible. His “yes” is as good as His “no”.

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