journey onWord with us

If prayer was a place, I wonder if most people would note their own address as the land of wishful thinking. Stop for a minute and consider this for yourself. Are you that person?  Are you their neighbor? Everyone knows that we should pray, the Bible admonishes us to pray, and even a non-believer will sometimes call out to God in moments of distress. But how many people pray with a strong view of God’s power and real confidence that He will answer? Or is it more typical that prayers are words spoken in a heavenly direction out of obligation and wishful thinking (although we certainly wouldn’t admit it), without much confidence in the outcome?

If you are feeling a bit weak in your personal prayer life, confidence can return today. On a plane at about thirty thousand feet recently, I was reminded that our God is not limited. In reading the verse of a song I have known since childhood, I was challenged about impossibilities and our Lord.

Got any rivers you think are uncrossable;
Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?
God specializes in things tho’t impossible;
He does things others cannot do.

(Excerpt from Got Any Rivers, Oscar C. Eliason, copyright 1945)

You, no doubt, have some uncrossable rivers before you right now … so do I. There may even be some mountains of difficulty staring you right in the face. When we are not firm and steadfast in our view of God’s power, impossibilities look …well, impossible. The old song says that God specializes in things that are “tho’t impossible.” Can we believe it, or are those words just wishful thinking too? Experience has taught me that those who pray earnestly with confident faith, see God do “things others cannot do.” Are you ready to experience Him that way in your life?

The prophet Jeremiah affirmed our assertion…

Ah Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
Jeremiah 32:17

Are those words of wishful thinking, or blocks of granite to build our prayer life upon? Scripture is clear.  God can be trusted.  But will we believe it and see it reflected in our own life of prayer?  Later in chapter 32, the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah.

I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me? (v. 27)

Jeremiah prayed it, God affirmed it, and let’s just be simple enough to believe it. Nothing is too hard for God!

Is your prayer life firmly rooted in the truth that nothing is too hard for Him? If you are anything like me, there are times I get it. Those times are special and quite profound. They are times of river crossings and mountain passes. There is no wishful thinking in the truth of God’s Word, and there should be no wishful thinking in our prayer lives. Nothing is too Hard for Him. Believe it and pray like it!