Our God is not impossible, but He is a God who specializes in doing impossible things.  He answers prayers we don’t even dare to pray. His does more than we can even think to ask. What we call impossible, He can do easily.

A few days ago, I read through the story of Abraham. I was once again amazed at how God does impossible things in our life and how He asks us to do impossible things.

In Genesis 22, God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son . . . his only son who he loved.

This wasn’t the first time God asked Abraham to trust Him.

It wasn’t the first time that God told Abraham to do something crazy, or that God said He’d do the impossible for Abraham.

Throughout Abraham’s life, God had taught Abraham to trust Him. God had asked him to leave everything and go into a strange land. He’d promised him thousands of heirs when he did not even have one son. He protected and blessed him through it all. God did all this to prepare Abraham for this ultimate test of trust and faith.

In the beginning of Genesis 15, long before Abraham even had a son, God told him, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

Throughout his life, Abraham had witnessed the wild, untame love and power of God. Abraham may not have understood, but he’d questioned God before and he wouldn’t do it this time.

He decided to trust God, even if it would cost him what was dearest to him in this world.

He obeyed even as fear seized his heart, even as worry invaded his every thought, even when he had no guarantee God would spare the life of his only and beloved son.

God understood the sacrifice he was asking Abraham to make. God knew from the beginning of time, since the first moment we turned our hearts against him, that He too would have to make the ultimate sacrifice—that of willingly giving up His only and beloved son.

In Genesis 22:8, Abraham assures his son, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” Abraham trusted God and Isaac trusted Abraham—the father he knew loved him. 

God tested Abraham’s faith and spared the life of his son. In verse 12 God said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 

Our God does impossible things for us and sometimes He asks us for impossible things.

But the truth is that all we have to do is trust. Our trust in Him leads us to obey Him. If we do this, no matter the price tag of what He asks of us, then GOD COMES THROUGH.

He does the impossible part of the deal. All we have to do is follow His lead and respond to the whispers of His love in our life. When He says go and we go—He’ll carve out the path for us to walk. We may not know why we are going or where we are going, but He’ll show us in time.

He knows that His plan for us is what is best for us. His love tests us just like it tested Abraham, but His love does not try to manipulate or trick us. His love protects us, grows us, and nurtures us.

A year ago God made two things clear to me—that He wanted me to go to India for the summer and that He wanted me to come back to PCC for my masters.

When it came to India, I had no details or plans, I just knew that was the country He wanted me to go to. When I agreed to go, God was the one who carved out that path and made it possible. He did the hard part. All I had to do was trust Him—even if that meant daily surrendering doubts and fears.

But staying for my masters . . . that was something I did not want to do. I thought I knew what it would cost me. I came up with half a dozen others plans—places to go and dreams to chase. But God gave me reason after reason to stay instead of leaving.

I didn’t want to trust Him with this.

But I finally did. And even though I did so reluctantly and skeptically, God has changed my heart. Fall semester starts in two days and already I’ve been filled with unexpected peace and joy.

My heart feels settled because I know that for now this is exactly where God wants me. He’s poured out blessings on me that I could not have foreseen a year ago when I struggled to resign my will and make the choice to stay.

God has proven over and over to me that if I listen to His voice and trust His will for my life, He will make the way. He will do the impossible. He will go before me and carry me through whatever lies ahead.

This is the most beautiful love story—that of trusting God again and again with a broken, sin-stained heart. God is ever patient with us. He will not force us to obey Him, but He gives us every reason to. He proves His love for us. He never lets us down. He never fails us or leaves us. Instead, He holds us closer.

I’m struggling every day to surrender. To die to my flesh. To submit to His will and not to become entangled again with sin. Isn’t this the whole point of our walk with Jesus? To take up our cross and daily follow Him?

We’re going to fall—and usually when I do fall it’s straight onto my face—but we don’t have to stay down. Grace gives us permission to get up and follow Him again.

During this past week, God has been slowly showing me what to write for this blog post. I’ve wanted to write it for several days, but I knew I had to wait.

An hour ago, I was half asleep when I prayed, “God, I know you want me to write this. But there’s still something missing. If you want me to stay up and write this, make it so that I cannot sleep until the words come out.”

As I got ready for bed, I opened Instagram and the first thing I saw was a story my sister Raeya had posted a few minutes ago. She had shared one of her simple, yet profoundly deep drawings.

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When I saw the picture, I quickly ran back to my room and pulled out my laptop and Bible again. Words filled my mind and I knew it was finally time to write this post. These were the words that came to me:

The gospel itself is the most impossible story of all—that a perfect God would send His one and only Son to redeem a broken world. That Jesus would leave the comfort and peace of Heaven and step into our sorrow and sin-caused suffering. That He would not see who we are, but who we could become through His redemptive love.

He loved us—impossibly so.

He saved us even as we nailed Him to a cross and spit in His face and cursed His name.

What a God! What depth of love and grace that He has consistently shown each of us! If the proof of His love and sacrifice wasn’t before us, it would be absolutely incredulous to believe that a perfect and Holy God would step into sin and darkness to pull us out of the mire and gift us a new life.

I invited Jesus into my heart when I was five years old. A lot has changed since then, but that decision remains true. When I was a kid, my absolute favorite Sunday School song was “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” It’s a very simple song, but I pray that it would still be the anthem of my heart.

I’ve decided to follow Jesus every day, leaving the world and its darkness behind me.

I’ve decided to follow Jesus no matter where He takes me.

I’ve decided to follow Jesus even if it costs me what I love most.

Those are scary words to write. But I want them to be more than words—I want them to ring true. I serve a God who delights in doing the impossible. I pray that He would do the impossible in my own life and that He would take over the throne in my heart. I want Him—I need Him—to come first.

This morning, my family and I attended my home church, the same church where I yielded my heart to Christ so many years ago. We sang the words of this hymn:

Have Thine own way, Lord,

Have Thine own way;

Thou art the Potter,

I am the clay.

Mould me and make me

After Thy will,

While I am waiting,

Yielded and still.

I don’t know what God is going to ask of me next. But I want Him to have His own way in my heart and life. Everything that He has given me He could so easily take away. I don’t want my love for Him to depend on my circumstances or the blessings He’s flooded my life with.

I want to love Him because of who He is and what He’s done for me. In the words of C. S. Lewis, “I want God, not my idea of God.“ Those are also scary words to write because who God is may not be who we want Him to be.

We may not want a God who asks us to trust Him completely, even to the point of sacrificing a son. God asked Abraham for the impossible. His request didn’t make sense, but He also didn’t offer any sort of explanation or reasoning. Abraham could have easily demanded a reason or fought for the life of his only and beloved son.

Instead, Abraham trusted God and obeyed Him even though that obedience could have easily cost him everything.

Are we willing to trust God in this same way? No matter what it costs us? Do we truly believe that God can answer our impossible prayers? We serve a God who does what cannot be done. He saved us even when death had us marked for an eternity of suffering. He can do whatever He chooses. All we had to do is let Him have His way.

We must trust that our God who has done impossible things can do them again.

“Enjoy your life while you wait. Enter into God’s rest knowing He will come through. You’ve seen Him move mountains before and you’ll see Him do it again.”

—J. Beck

PS: Check out “I Just Want You” by Sarah Reeves