Choose Life

What do you do, when the impossible needs to become not only possible, but in fact the impossible becomes your only hope?




At any time, in any place, anywhere in the world there are thousands of people standing face-to-face with situations that are impossible. These are very real situations, life-threatening situations, heart breaking situations. These circumstances are out of control. Events and activities are rushing like a train racing down a track toward a gully with no bridge. In the midst of these uncontrollable and dramatic events we hear voices. At first, the voices are clear and loud and seem to have plausible answers to our cries for help. "Just try this!" says one voice. "No, that will never work!" chimes out another. "You wouldn’t be in this problem if you hadn’t been so careless” (or so rebellious or so foolish, or so...)



You brush away the swarm of pat answers that circles your head. Your mind begins to reel with the weight of your impossible dilemma. Prayer! That is what I need to do. I need to pray more. I need to call my friends and ask them to pray for me. I need to tell them that this is impossible. I have searched for an answer till my brain aches and I have not found one. Or maybe I need to read the Bible. The answer must be in there. I just haven’t read it enough. God must have said something about my situation somewhere.



Well, the good news is that he has said something about your situation. He is aware of all of your circumstances. It’s hard to accept. His answers are not what you want to hear. You see, God is so good, and knows everything from the beginning to the end and he has a priority for your life. That priority is to reestablish an unbreakable bond between him and you. To do this, he must prioritize the development of your character over all else. He uses every circumstance, every condition, every dilemma and every impossible situation to transform you. He restores your heart and mind by removing the infectious death that attacks you and replacing it with a fountain of living water.



When I come up against impossible circumstances I turn to God. I consistently get individually crafted and finely tuned responses to my petitions. I put all of God’s answers under one heading. It reads, "…after doing all there is to do, stand.” Stand.



I have looked at that Scripture for years and wondered what on earth it meant. I conjured up an image of a man dressed in armor riding a horse directly toward an opposing army of thousands. The man was all alone. He had no one to stand beside him. No other warrior was able or willing to join my battle. I wanted to go out fighting with my sword held high and not give up until the very end. I tried that and I got knocked off my horse a lot. That surprised me. I was sure that the power of God within me would destroy the enemy. Don’t get me wrong! I had a lot of victories too. But I felt like I was winning battles and losing the war. The losses I was experiencing, the impossible situations I was facing, the wounds I had experienced were too significant and were impacting too much of my life to be ignored.



So I would go back to the Word and read again "after doing all there is to do to stand.” Stand. What could this mean? It had to mean more than I had seen before. As I continued seeking God for an answer in his Word, I began to experience an inner strength that I at first mistook for weakness. Places in my heart that were wounded or darkened by sin started to come into view with more clarity. Initially I was repulsed. Then I became afraid that some punishment would overcome me and I would be destroyed.



While I was going through this illumination of my soul, I sensed a Presence, at first barely noticeable. Soon it became more clear and defined. It was Jesus! He was walking me through a process. I was journeying from bondage to death toward freedom in life. Without speaking He began to show me an image of myself being washed in his blood - his real blood! The blood gushed forth from the wounds on his hands and feet, his face and his side. He was watching me change. The stains of all my bad choices, all my sins disappeared. I said to him, "I am still so weak. I cannot face these impossible circumstances!" "But I can," replied the Lord.



Then I remembered Paul, and how he had said, "God shows his strength best in my weakness." Paul faced some pretty tough situations. He was stoned, whipped, thrown in prison, shipwrecked, and left for dead. Through all of this he had the attitude that it was a blessing for him to suffer for Christ. To look at his life you would think he was a man plagued by death. But in reality he was a man who had overcome death. I believe it was Paul’s choosing life in the face of death that gave him the ability to face the impossible without fear. He said he counted all the things of this world to be worth nothing more than a pile of dung. I further believe that it was choosing a life without compromise that enabled him to say, “after you have done everything you can do to stand your ground, stand.”



The real answer to the impossible is that I have to give my life over to the undefeatable. To do this, I have to set my expectations aside. I have to trust in the Lord with all of my heart and lean not upon my own understanding but acknowledge him in everything I do. This allows him to make my paths straight. This does not take the pain out of life, but it puts life in the pain. I will not totally understand the difficulties of this life as long as I am living. But I have a promise that someday I will be transformed to be completely like him and to know him in everything - even his suffering -as he really is.



I have chosen to stand by choosing life.