He is back again today. His morning routine seems to coincide with mine—enjoy the garden early before the day rolls in.
I eat my peanut-butter toast on the bench. He gathers nectar from the abundance of colorful offerings surrounding us.
He lumbers through the air in seemingly labored effort. In and out of the blooms he weaves. His path is erratic, unlike the agile flight of his smaller cousins.
His large yellow and black body is somehow supported by fragile, opaque wings.
He flies close for a second, decides I have no nectar to offer, and turns for the nearest garden flower. His journey fascinates me as I watch.
Charming though he looks, I shrink back to avoid his sting.
According to twentieth-century folklore, a aerodynamicist reported that in no way should a bumblebee be able to fly. His wings are too small to support the massive body and he doesn’t have the agility to beat his wings fast enough per second.
Impossible.
Yet he flies with ease.
The apostles were just men. Some were simple fishermen looking for their next catch. One was a despised tax collector. One was a doctor.
Plain, ordinary, earthly men.
Full of doubt.
Leaking ego and attitude.
Following the stranger who would become their life, their all. Confused and bewildered at times, yet they stuck by his side.
The crowds challenged, “Who are these men that they can do such things? How can they speak as educated men? We know them from their humble beginnings. They are nobodies!”
Impossible.
For the typical Jewish boy, by age twelve to fourteen, their education was considered complete. Only the brightest and those with parents who could afford it continued on.
Yet these mostly unlearned men did the impossible, becoming great men–Maybe not in the eyes of the world, but for the cause of Christ.
In the end they had a faith so strong it carried them through unwaveringly to their untimely deaths– at the hands of evil.
When the days are dark. When the pit yawns before me. When despair seeps and faith dries. When the odds are stacked and common knowledge says no way out. I look to Him.
How can I trudge on? How can He resolve this conflict? How can He bind this pain, this hurt? Can it ever end?
He doesn’t promise to take our trials away.
He promises to give us strength to endure.
He is the answer to all my impossibles.
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Phil 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
-What feels impossible to you right now?
-Ask him to help you through and he will give you the strength you need.