Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” This episode questions if we really believe that nothing is too hard for God. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Nothing Is Too Hard For God
Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”
I wonder if we truly believe this? Do we believe nothing is too hard for the Lord? I know I certainly want to believe it. I know that I do believe it with my whole heart. And yet, do I believe it? Have you ever had something that you believed, something you were so sure was true and yet your actions still questioned it, or some part of you still wondered? For instance, I believe God can cure anything. I know He can as we have seen it time and time again, not only in the Bible, we are still seeing it today. I just talked about three recent miracle in yesterday’s episode. So, I know that God can do the impossible. I know that nothing is too hard for Him, and yet I sometimes still hesitate to pray for what I really want. Why is this?
I was just asking my husband Tony about this question. I asked him if he truly believed that nothing was too hard for God. He said absolutely. Nothing can get in the way of God’s will. Then I gave him a scenario of someone being sick with an incurable illness and asked him if God could cure that person. He said yes, definitely, but I don’t think He would. So, maybe this is the real issue. Maybe it’s not an issue of whether we believe that God can do anything, maybe it is about whether or not we trust God will do something. Why do we question whether God will save someone or not? I understand that not everyone we pray for gets better and I don’t believe that is because of anything we are doing wrong. I believe that some things are a mystery and I don’t know why God doesn’t cure everyone when we know that He can.
When I pray for someone to get better and they do not, I lean into Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” I lean into this verse because it reminds me that I don’t have to understand it because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. He doesn’t think like us. He knows all the pieces to the puzzle before He even starts to put it together and His ways are higher than our ways. He has a plan and whatever it is, it is better than our plan. So, I understand that not everyone we pray for will be healed.
However, I still wonder why we question that He will heal the people we are praying for? If we know He can, why do we doubt that He will? Do we think that God made these people sick? Well, not made them sick, but because He is allowing them to be sick, it must be His will for them to be sick? I think some of us think that. We know God could cure all cancer if He wanted to and so it must be His will that cancer is on the face of the earth. I am not an expert by any means on God’s will but I am pretty sure that God doesn’t want most of what is going on in the world to be going on. He doesn’t want us to be dying of cancer and other diseases. He doesn’t want all the violence in the world today. He doesn’t want us all divided and fighting with each other. I am pretty sure that there is very little going on in this world is according to God’s perfect will. So then, that leaves God’s permissive will. Yes God allows bad things to happen. However, in the middle of all the bad, he also allows some great things to happen.
He is still preforming miracles. He is still curing people and raising up Saints. Why can’t our loved one be the next miracle? Why do we have such a hard time believing that God wants to cure our loved ones? Why do we have that doubt? Today I was sending out a prayer request to the prayer line I belong to. I was asking for prayers for a friend’s mom who is having stomach surgery at the end of the month. I wanted to ask for prayers so that she was completely cured and they didn’t even have to do the surgery. But then I knew they already checked and they did need to. So I wanted to ask for prayers that when they got in there she was completely healed and they didn’t need to take away any of her stomach. I know God can do this, I have heard of stories like this before. Yet when I went to type it, I couldn’t. Now that I am thinking about it I am wondering if I was thinking God wouldn’t do it, or I was worried about what others would think if I wrote that.
Isn’t that something that can limit our prayers sometimes? Do you ever alter what you really want to say because someone else is listening and you don’t want to sound silly or crazy? I sometimes am also cautious as to what I am saying when I am praying out loud because I don’t want to get someone’s hopes up and then let them down if it doesn’t happen. I guess I don’t want to give people false hope. However, I believe that God wants us to hope for the impossible. I think He wants us to trust Him with the big Asks. Noting is too hard for God. If we know this is true, then maybe the problem is that we are not asking Him for big enough things. He is a powerful and He can make the impossible happen. Are we asking Him too? Also, when we are asking are we asking Him with the expectation that He will? Do we believe not only that He can, but that He will? And if we don’t believe that, can we ask God to help us believe, just like the soldier did in Mark 9:24, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.”
I think we are not seeing more healings because we are not expecting to see them. We believe that God can and that is a start. Now, I think He wants us to go that one step further and believe He not only can, but He wants to and he will. I think if we ask God to help us with our unbelief then He will. There are so many people with COVID right now and it seems there are more and more each day. What if we all keep praying for them and we do it with the belief that God wants to take away their pain. He wants to cure all those infected with this virus. What if we were all praying with expectant hearts, would we see a rise in the number of our loved ones being cured? What if we prayed some pretty big prayers? Remember, we are talking about the same God that made the heavens and the earth. Whatever we are asking Him to do is tiny in comparison to that. Give it a try, see if your prayers feel any different when you are believing the Lord wants to do what you are asking Him to do.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we believe, help our unbelief. Lord, help us to believe that you not only can answer our prayers, but that you want to. Help us to ask you for the impossible believing that you will answer. Lord you are so powerful. You make the heavens and the earth, you make day and night, you made all things. We are so luck that you are our one true God. We don’t deserve your love and yet you give it so freely. We don’t deserve your mercy and yet you give us that freely as well. We love you so much Lord and we are so grateful for all you do for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend.