I don't know why, but for some reason - the idea that Christians live out the "impossible" daily has been running through my mind the past few weeks… There are so many people that I know that lead lives that others call "impossible."I guess the idea of this all started when I was way back in 10th grade…
Through my honors history class, I got the chance to go out to Washington DC for a week with a program called "Close-Up." Over that week, the 300 or so participants were split up into groups of about 20 student, and one night, my group had a discussion about drugs.
I didn't say much during the discussion (I get nervous talking in front of groups sometimes), but afterwards I had a discussion with a guy who had come from Gary, Indiana. He lived in the stereotypical city area - full of drugs and crime. He had talked a lot that night about his own experiences, and you could tell that he didn't like the area that he was growing up in.
I had gotten to know him a bit over the time we had been there, so I went up to him and brought up our group's discussion, and I told him that I had never tried drugs or even seen any -- ever. He was completely floored, he could barely believe me - we talked for a bit, and before we went our separate ways, he asked to shake my hand since - to him - I had achieved the impossible (I thought that was a bit weird to have a hand shake be involved in that…but whatever - he said he wanted to have shaken the hand of someone who had never seen drugs).
I can only hope that I gave him some hope that day…because he just saw a cycle where drugs would always be involved, and by me telling him that I had never even seen drugs in my 17 years…that was amazing to him, and I can only hope that he tried to make his own changes to lead a life that he thought was "impossible."
...While writing out that story, it sounds super dorky to me, and it kinda is, but in the situation - it fit right, and he really was sincere in the happiness he showed me when he found out that not every high schooler in America has had a life that universally involves drugs.
There are things that Christians do everyday that our society says is impossible. I still haven't seen drugs - ever - or even been drunk, and my guess is that most people would say that's impossible for someone at my age. I also know many friends who waited until they were married to have sex…and I still know a lot of my un-married friends who haven't had sex yet either - and plan on waiting. Someone I really respect told me that it is IMPOSSIBLE to wait for marriage…and when I gave the examples of my friends that I know waited, he says that they are lying. But these people are practically family, and I know they aren't lying…and I also plan on proving this person's bad expectations wrong through my own life. Maybe he won't believe me when I say I waited, but it's not about him - it's about myself, God, and whoever I may one day marry.
Everyday we Christians do the 'impossible' - we get up and live lives that others do not believe is real or attainable. Some people can’t fathom a place where they are not in constant fear of being attacked, some people cannot imagine a place with endless clean water, some people can't see that drugs don’t have to be a part of their lives, and some people don't believe that they can avoid additional heartache by waiting in their romantic relationships.
Don't let yourself get in a rut where you start to believe that what you want is impossible…through God, you can do all things and gain strength through Him.
Philippians 3:1-14 (edited)
2Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 3For it is we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
