Imagine the impossible

What would it have been like to live in the Middle Ages? When there was no education and very little accurate knowledge? Even the sciences of the time were less like science and more like something out of a fairy tale, which is probably why the mortality rate was so high. I have always found it fascinating as I’ve studied history that Man seems to lay out all the possibilities on the table and tell God what He is capable of doing.

 

That hasn’t changed, not in the thousands of years of human history. Even today, we present our meager understanding of the origins of the universe, displaying our knowledge like a trophy, and shove it in God’s face, telling Him that there is only one way He could have created everything. Because there’s only one way we can understand it.

 

But is God truly limited by our understanding?

 

Moon with no detail - Haven, KS

Today’s verse is Ephesians 3:20.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

I have a really crazy imagination. It’s always going at full speed. It never slows down, and I’m rarely ever bored because my head is always thinking up random things. But as crazy and vivid as my imagination is, even I tend to put God in a box.

I look at the aspects of my life and my talents and my situation and my circumstances, and I tell God what He can and can’t do with me. Is that right? Is God stuck with me, with someone who can’t succeed at the one thing she’s tried to accomplish all her life? And if I don’t understand why I can’t accomplish my g0als, does that mean I’ll never accomplish them?

Of course not.

I think we try to put God in a box because it makes us feel like we’re in control. It makes us feel like we’ve got a handle on our situation. It’s an illusion if we feel that way, because we don’t have control over anything. And the truth is, if God wants to do something miraculous in our lives, He’ll do it, whether we understand it or not.

I went outside last night and took pictures of the full moon. I’m still pretty new with photography so I couldn’t get my settings right to take a picture of the Moon with details. It was super clear, but the only shots I could get painted it as a ball of light in a black sky. And even after I’d tried over and over again, I kept getting the same image. And by that time, my hands were numb and there was something wandering around in the orchard that wasn’t a cat, and I didn’t much feel like getting sprayed by the skunks that have been hanging out on my property. So I went inside.

But even our understanding of the Moon changed when we got close to it. People used to think it was made of cheese. People used to think it had lakes. People used to think all sorts of crazy things. And then we got up there, and although it’s spectacular, not much of what anyone expected was true. And it even has a side that no one can see.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to postulate things that could be or might be. But maybe we shouldn’t be so certain about things in our lives that we can’t predict. Maybe we shouldn’t be so sure that we know what God is going to do with our lives because honestly I don’t think we do. I think it’s a dangerous game to be playing when you think you can understand the immensity of what God can accomplish through us.

Nothing is impossible with God. So why don’t we imagine the impossible instead of what we think we are capable of?