"Nothing, Coach." Their team was likened to David facing Goliath.
Are you facing impossible odds today? Could it be that God has your answer? But how do you find it?
Like the bicyclist in the above picture, sometimes it seems like we just cannot carry the load on our backs. Life deals us an impossible hand, and we see no way to come out on top. Our situation seems hopeless.
Our daughter was born into a hopeless situation--a communist country that did not allow orphans to be adopted. But God had a plan. A BIG plan. The seemingly impossible Iron Curtain had to come down for her to escape. Miraculously it did.
The first glimmer of hope occurred a mere four months after her birth. The Berlin Wall fell just months before we met her. What the free world considered impossible for decades suddenly became reality. God transformed her hopeless circumstance into hope-filled freedom.
Right before my very last exam in medical school my plan to specialize in pathology went up in smoke! I had already signed a contract for a three-year residency when I was informed the field was destined to dry up. No one had warned me. My situation was hopeless. But God had a plan.
In less than 15 minutes after hearing the devastating news, the chief resident in dermatology sat down across from me. After hearing my horror story he urged me to consider dermatology. But it would require my doing a year of internal medicine first and that was out of the question. My contract in pathology precluded that.
"Why don't you talk to the dermatology chairman? Maybe they will make an exception."
An exception? For one medical student in the entire country? Fat chance. But what did I have to lose? Surprisingly the chairman made the exact same comment days later: "Maybe they (the Board of Dermatology) will make an exception." I left his office thinking they were both nuts.
Within days the chairman informed me that the Board would make an exception for me on one condition--that I do an internship in medicine for six months in addition to a year of pathology. And only if I did the medicine before the pathology.
It just so happened that I was graduating six months earlier than my classmates. If I could secure a medical internship within days I could squeeze that internship in before starting my pathology training. It all fell into place. What seemed impossible days earlier suddenly became reality. God opened doors that no man could open, enabling me to switch my specialty to dermatology.
What was the key that transformed the impossible into the possible? In both situations my prayers sounded something like this: "God, I only want what You want in this situation." I had committed my career and later my family to Him.
During my four years of medical school I prayed fervently, "I only want to specialize in what You want me to." When we wanted to start a family, I prayed long and hard, "I only want the child You want us to have. If You don't want us to adopt, then block it."
In each situation I affirmed that God knew what was best before He made it clear what His plan was.
Saying yes to God first and committing your decision to His will ahead of time provides the path for Him to do the impossible. Giving God free rein gives Him the freedom to do what He wants in our lives--which always guarantees a better plan.
Here are some of my favorite Scriptures to declare over impossible situations:
- "For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment" (Luke 1:37 AMP).
- God "works out everything in agreement with the counsel and design of His [own] will" (Ephesians 1:11 AMP).
- Lord, show me the way in which I should walk and the thing that I should do (Jeremiah 42:3 AMP, personalized).
- "What is impossible with man is possible with God" (Luke 18:27 NIV).
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