Is It Possible?

Life tends to lead us into routines. Because of the busyness of our world, the natural physical and emotional response is to find stability through predictability. The way we do that is through routine patterns of everyday living. We try to get up from bed, go to work, get the kids off to school, get home from work, eat dinner, get to bed, etc.— all at established times, in a certain order, and according to a certain rhythm. Even spiritually we seek to practice certain spiritual disciplines with pattern and predictability (daily times in prayer and Bible reading, attending worship, serving, etc.). This predictability helps us feel more in control. Or said another way, predictability helps us feel less out of control.

There is value and benefit to this kind of living. To feel more stable in a rather insecure world is not a bad thing. But, there is also a downside to predictability. You see, the way we live life feeds into our soul ideas about reality. We actually begin to believe that we are in control, that life is inherently stable and secure, and that routine will guarantee a certain future. These of course are myths.

The problem is that predictability defies faith. Our sense of control defies the belief that God is in control. Routine leads to ruts that drive away notions that things in life can be different. And so the way that life is… is the way that life is defined. The marriage we have is the marriage we will always have. The job we work at everyday will always have the same problems, people and tasks. The attitudes we have toward others, material things, achievement, parenting, relationships— these are the attitudes that are just “me”, that will not change, and are therefore the way that life will always be. Additionally, the ideas I have about God, who He is, what He can do, and what He will do are based upon my past experiences. In essence we cynically say, “I know amazing things can happen because I hear stories all the time about God doing the impossible… but they happen only in other people’s lives.” In this sense, God remains confined to our beliefs about Him.

So all we know (our reality) is what we can predict and control. This runs counter to the spiritual truth that things can be different in Christ. Often with predictability and routine comes the loss of faith and the optimistic hope that life can be different when it should be different… or alternatively, that in the middle of a life that might remain the same, I can be different. You see, the biggest obstacle to things being different is the belief that they can’t be.

Immeasurably More is about once again believing that God can do impossible things. That He can still change me and my circumstances. That I don’t have to resign myself to the life I am living now. That just because life has been a certain way for a long time, does not mean it must remain that way. That God can change it and that He can change me. That even daily routine can be filled with power and joy. That what we hope for and dream of (as established in Christ) can translate into reality.

These are the seemingly impossible things that are possible in Christ.

It’s been said that insanity is defined as doing the same things, yet expecting different results. I think however that if we expect different results (by first believing that things can be different in Christ), we will then have power from within to begin to do different things.

It is my prayer that The Brook will experience the bright hope of the power of Christ within and this wave of God’s Spirit will sweep across our church like a fresh fall breeze and reintroduce us to the miraculous possibilities in Christ Jesus.

But this prayer is not original with me. It was first penned 2,000 years ago by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21. Read his words below, and pray for God to renew you, awaken our entire church, and revive us into real faith in and through Jesus.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”