MANY years ago, I fell sick with a near fatal illness. Most doctors gave up on me, except the Mighty Healer. After getting back on my feet, albeit a little shaky, I remember conducting a choir, in which my gift to the people in the congregation who had kept me in prayer, was the song, “Nothing Is Impossible!”
How many times have you heard someone say at work: “We cannot do that! It is not possible”? Sometimes this is true – a customer makes a demand that cannot possibly be satisfied within the specified time frame. Or a client asks for a service far beyond your company’s expertise.
Often, however, we conclude something is not possible because it seems like too much work, we do not know whether it can be done or not, or fear putting forth the effort only to fail. There are many other examples of people who ignored negative voices, who recognized what people said was “impossible” in fact was possible – unless they quit trying. Michelangelo probably had his detractors when he embarked on painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Thomas Edison made multiple attempts at inventing an incandescent light bulb until he succeeded. He refused to quit trying.
In 1943, IBM chairman Thomas Watson stated, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” And Digital Equipment Corp. founder Ken Olson said in 1977, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” However, through hard work, vision and innovation – understanding impossible is not possible until you quit – many men and women proved the one-time industry giants wrong.
We cannot do it alone. The fact is, many of our desired goals often are unattainable in our own strength. They are not impossible, but require more than the power we can muster within ourselves. We need power outside of ourselves.
We need God’s power. And it was many years before my illness when I started a small business and with God’s power it grew bigger than I’d ever imagined. I realized then that we can do anything, but only with God. If you have a God-sized dream or goal, accomplishing it requires willingness to turn to the One that gave you dream. As the Bible says, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God”
I remember the choir: Voices rising in crescendo, “Nothing Is Impossible, when you put your trust in God!” went the first line. I conducted that choir after being three months in bed. I was weak and weary and prayed God would give me strength to hold the baton. He did.
Today, over three decades later and with even more examples of God’s immense power I believe even more that nothing is impossible for God! If I had the chance to conduct that choir again I would raise their voices to an even louder crescendo..!
