I’m pretty much an It’s Still Possible kind of believer. After all, I know that God can do anything and if He chooses to help, there’s no fix I can get into that He can’t fix. Though I believe it serves most of us well to focus on those things that are possible, or at least more positive, we all know there are limits. We’re all aware that sometimes the winds of change do not blow in our favor.
For example, I know that my husband’s pancreas will not simply grow back and supply the enzymes his body needs to digest and process food. By human standards, it’s something we adjust to because it can’t be fixed. Is it possible with God, absolutely!? Is it likely to happen? Not so much.
So, we all have those things that are just no longer possible given our age or our health, or even our faith. In that headspace, we just accept our circumstances and do our best to move on.
The question then, is what happens when it’s not possible, when the thing we pray for, wish for, hope for, can’t happen for a long list of reasons. What then?
Perhaps the first thing to do is put our anxiousness and our fears and our troubled hearts in front of God and let Him know we were hoping for a different answer, that we believed something better would happen. It’s okay to let God know when we’re disappointed, or when we even feel betrayed. Our grief and despair can all be poured out in front of God if we remember this one thing. God still reigns. God is the designer, the Creator, the One who is in charge, even as things change. As His children, we can and we want to tell Him everything about how we feel…joy, amazement, gratitude, disappointment, or sadness. Our humanness is in His hands.
One thing we can learn from the biblical account of Job is that Job didn’t try to determine if God was fair, He only tried to determine if God still knew he believed God was in every circumstance Job faced. Trusting God knew what was going on with Job was enough for him. Job could let God work out the rest.
Perhaps one take away for us then is simply to remember that God knows everything about us. He doesn’t miss the details and no matter what we face, He’s still there and He hears every prayer. When what you want isn’t possible, what you need is still there for you.