IS IT EVER IMPOSSIBLE?

Sometimes we want to believe that a task at hand is simply impossible. There is no way that we can accomplish what is asked of us. We look at the task from every angle, use every bit of wisdom we have accrued over the years, and determine that the problem is insoluble, is impossible. But is any task insoluble, impossible? My old English Professor passed on these words of wisdom: "We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."    

           

If that is true, and I suspect we all must agree, if only begrudgingly, that it is, then two questions arise. First, who disguises the problems? Who is responsible for blinding our eyes so that we do not see what a great opportunity we have to, for instance, live out our life of faith, to respond to a situation as our faith would demand that we do?

           

The quick – but wrong – response is that this bit of nastiness and deceit is the work of the devil. Almost. It is the work of the devil minus the "d". It is the work of the evil, the sinfulness in each of us. We don't see because we don't want to see and not because the devil made sure that we don't see. To make the devil the scapegoat for our own unwillingness to respond is a cop out.

           

The second question follows from the first. If we are the primary reasons why we do not see the great opportunities that are presented to us on a daily basis to live out our faith, if we are the ones who brilliantly disguise these opportunities so that they look like insoluble problems, why do we do it? Why do we not want to see what our faith says we can and should see?

           

Probably because we are lazy. I don't know about you, but most of the time the reason why I think something is impossible for me to do is that I am simply too lazy to do it. Oh, I can and do find some really good excuses why the problem I have discovered is insoluble. But deep inside I know that I just don't want to do it. And when I finally convince myself, when the evil that lies within that is called laziness convinces me to walk away believing that I can do nothing, I fail.

           

I fail the other in not doing that which I can do, and I fail myself. The reason that I was graced to discover the problem in the first place, the reason why God opened my eyes to see the problem, was that God also gave me the ability, with God’s grace, to solve that problem – or at least do all that I can (with God's help) to solve the problem. I'm letting myself down as well as the other person.

           

Something is only impossible if I believe that I have to solve or resolve the problem all by myself. If I honestly believe that, and if I attempt to resolve all problems all by myself, I will quickly wear out and just as quickly allow those great opportunities to slip by because they have slipped into the impossible/insoluble category. Nothing is ever impossible if we remember that the God who allows us to see the problem will also give us the grace and strength to make the situation a great opportunity to demonstrate his love and our love. But the first step is up to us: we have to look behind the disguise.