Do you ever feel like someone gives you a task to do because they know you can’t accomplish it and they want to see you fail? Some people may feel like God does this to them. He does give out some hard assignments from time to time. In fact, I’ve heard it said that God is a hard teacher because He gives the test before the lesson. I don’t know that I agree with that statement. I believe we have a very loving God who never sets us up for failure. He always sets us up for success; we simply have to make the right choices in order to be successful.
God is a god of relationship. In Genesis 1:26 He says “Let Us make man in Our image…” The “Us” refers to the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Because we are created in His image, we are created for relationship, first with Him and then with others. He has great plans for us to be successful [Jeremiah 29:11]. The success He sets us up for is based on His standard of success, not the world’s standard.
God loves us. He is totally for us and with us through all things [Deuteronomy 31:6]. He will put tasks before us that are impossible on our own but aren’t just possible, but probable with God, because as Mark 10:27 points out “all things are possible with God.” We can rest assured we can “do all things through Him” as pointed out in Philippians 4:13.
If you look at Matthew 14:13-21 you see a situation that looked pretty impossible to the disciples. They had well over 5,000 men, women and children who had gathered around to hear Jesus teach [Do you ever wonder how they all heard him since they didn’t have PA systems back then? No, maybe it’s just me.]. It is getting close to dinner time and the disciples ask Jesus to send the people away so they can get something to eat in the villages. Can’t you imagine the look of panic on the disciples faces when Jesus said “you give them something to eat” and they had nothing. All they managed to collect was two fish and five loaves. Now that would appear impossible to anyone; however, when they factored in what their Partner in life brought to the equation, it was no big deal.
We mess up when we face a difficult decision and only factor in what we can do to solve the problem or complete the task. “Nothing is impossible with God.” [Luke 1:37]. Note the second to the last word of that verse- with. It means “accompanied by” or “in particular relation to.” Nothing is impossible when we are accompanied by or related to God.
What are you facing today? Don’t back down. You may not know what to do on your own, but with God you’ve got it covered.