impossible?

Music is a very important part of my life, so I often have lyrics from songs running through my head. These lyrics often form the basis of what I write. This post would be another one of those.

For the last few weeks I've had one line from a song on repeat in my head. The song is called What Faith Can Do by Kutless. The lyrics stuck in my head say: "Impossible is not a word, it's just a reason for someone not to try." The first time I heard those words a few years ago, they were a challenge I needed to hear. And today, they're still a good reminder for me.

How many times have you felt like there is something you should do and then talked yourself out of it because it sounds like it might be "impossible"? Or it seems like too big of a challenge for you? If you're like me or lots of other people I've talked to, you've probably done that at least a few times in your life. Maybe you're wrestling with that right now.

Sometimes God gives us dreams of things to do that seem impossible when we look at it. Often, they would be if we tried to do them on our own. And that makes it easy to talk ourselves out of it. We use the word "impossible" to give ourselves a reason not to do it.

We don't want to try something that might not work, so we don't try at all. We think if we try something and it doesn't go exactly as it should that we are failure. So, it's easier to just declare it to be impossible beforehand so that we don't have to take the chance.

But, I wonder how much of what God has for us we miss when we do that. What lessons do we miss? What opportunities do we miss? What would happen if we tried at all? What would happen if it didn't go the way we planned?

If we try something and it doesn't work, the world won't end. And it doesn't mean we're failure. It just means that what we tried didn't work, and if we seek to, we can learn from that experience for the next thing we try.

Impossible is not a word, it's just a reason for someone not to try

Over the last year or so, I've sought to remove the word "impossible" from my vocabulary. Instead, I've tried to replace it with acknowledgement that I may not be able to do it on my own, but if God is telling me to do it, He will help me to do it.

What about you? Have you missed things because you decided they were impossible? Do you need to remove the word "impossible" from your vocabulary and replace it with something else?

Hebrews 11

Over the summer I've been slowly working my way through the book of Hebrews. There's a lot in it and I often find myself stopping after just a few verses because there's so much in them. There is one chapter though that I found myself wanting to take in all at once, but still wanting to take slowly. I've spent most of the last week in Hebrews 11.

Growing up I commonly heard this chapter referred to as the "Hall of Faith." But I think I like the heading my Bible gives this chapter better: "Faith in Action." And the chapter is full of people who lived their faith, so "faith in action" seems like an appropriate title to me.

There are two verses in this chapter that really seem to me to be the basis for a definition of faith.
Verse 1 says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." And verse 6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." These verses make it pretty clear that faith begins in our minds - with how we think.

But, as I read and re-read the rest of the chapter, it becomes pretty clear to me that faith is about more than how we think. Those who were commended for their faith in faith are overwhelmingly commended for what they did by faith. They are mentioned because of how what they believed in their minds was played out in their lives. It changed how they lived. It impacted the actions they took.

Just a few of the examples in Hebrews 11:

• Verse 7 - Noah built an ark when God told him too, even when there was no sign of the flood God said was going to come.
• Verse 8-9 - Abraham left all he knew to go to a new land because of a promise God made to Him.
• Verse 17 - Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son, the son of the promise, to God, because he believed that God could still fulfill His promise.
• Verse 24-28 - Moses led Israel out of Egypt and toward the Promised Land without knowing the end result of it.
• Verse 30 - The people marched around Jericho according to God`s instructions because they believed that God would bring victory that way.
• Verse 31 - Rahab protected the spies that came even when it put herself and her family in danger.

As I spend time in this chapter, I find myself challenged anew to put my faith in action. I`m reminded that while my thinking is important, it's only the beginning. Faith begins with choosing to think a certain way, but it is proved by how I live. My faith needs to be "faith in action." What I say I believe should be evidenced in how I live my life.

So today, I leave you with some questions that I've been thinking about as I've spent some time in this chapter of God's Word.
How would you define faith?
How does that compare with what this chapter of Scripture says faith is?
What impact does that have on how you live? In other words, what does "faith in action" look like in your life?

noticing God

These days I often find myself seeing ideas for things to write about in all sorts of things. It's something that has seemed to come with placing a greater focus on my blog and having a schedule I'm trying to follow. I pay more attention to things - whether it be what I'm listening to or reading or something I'm doing.

It's not that I normally go through life oblivious to all these things. I've always paid attention to what is happening around me because it interests me. It's more like I'm learning to notice more of what God is up to in the world around me and in my own life.

It's easy to go through life without really paying attention to all the ways God is at work - especially when life is going relatively smoothly. But, I'm beginning to see that I miss so much when I do that. God is always at work in our world, we just have to be on the look out for it because it's not always in the big things. Sometimes the most amazing way to see God at work is to notice all the seemingly little things He does everyday.

How are you doing at noticing God at work in the lives of those around you?