Genesis 18:14 “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

“Oh Lord, my God, forgive me today for my sin, heal me and cause me to treasure your Presence in my midst; transform me to be more like Christ in whose name I call out to in these days…”

“Cause my heart to cry out; cause me to seek you early in the morning; I want to awaken to you early in the morning; to pray to you; sing to you; to dance in your Spirit with a heart of gratefulness; I want to eat of your holy Word and find You there; I want to renew my vision of your Son’s glorious return; I want to allow for your Holy Spirit to pull and stretch my faith and to convict and bring me your heavenly joy into my heart; I want to be restored and refreshed; awe-struck and silenced; calm and at peace when the storms strike; learning to trust you in all things…”

“I will fear thee with a holy fear that motivates me to serve thee, not a paralyzing fear that stops me dead in my tracks.”

“Lord, I pray that I may see you more clearly. To be healed of my pain so I might speak and testify of your greatness.”

I remember those nights well as I called out to the Lord to heal me from my crippling pain. And yet, I had resolved, and was willing, to endure this pain for the rest of my days knowing I could do it with the grace He’d give me. The quotes above are a few excerpts from my personal journal that I wrote on October 2-4, 2015, as I fasted and prayed to the living God of the heavens asking Him to heal and remove my back pain, if it were His will.

This wasn’t the first time I had been drawn to pray and fast for days on end. I don’t know why this time was any different. Was it my heart? My willingness to lay it all before Him without question? Was it that I came to the place of resigning my circumstances and life over to Him and that he would give me exactly what I needed and nothing more than what I needed? Was it a matter of me learning to trust Him more; to say as a father in the scriptures said to the Lord Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief!”

In August 2007, a friend and I were in a serious head on collision on Las Virgenes Road by a woman who had no hope and wanted to bring her life to an end. From that day forward my life changed in so many ways. Pain took over my body to the point that physical therapy, chiropractic assistance for several years, and heavy meds didn’t touch my pain. My doctors said surgery wasn’t an option. At times, I’d arrive home from work to be in tears from no relief…a 24-hour non-stop cycle of pain that would literally grip my entire body. Calling out to a heavenly Father is all I could do, over and over again. For the next eight years I fought this uphill battle.

On October 2-4, 2015, while my daughter was leading worship at a women’s retreat and my wife joining her, I knew this was my time to fast in humbleness before the Lord. It was long overdue. Three days. Just the Lord and me. His Word, deep heart-felt prayers, and a yellow tablet and pens to record scripture I sat and captured every moment with Him. It was then on October 27, after sitting for hours at work on my computer, a task that would have me reeling in pain after a short time, I stopped to realize I hadn’t taken any medication that day and I wasn’t feeling any pain in my body…I waited five days and I then took to my journal saying, “I have kept this to myself as I’ve been waiting for my pain to spike—it hasn’t. No pain!” On Sunday, November 1, 2015 (day six), I awoke my wife and said to her, “I have something to tell you.” When I shared with her my great news that I was pain free, her immediate words were, “This is the hand of God!” For my wife and I there have been numerous times before in our lives where the Lord has intervened in miraculous ways, times where my family and I stood amazed at His wonderful grace. We both wept and to this day we stand amazed praising His glorious name. I have a new found life.

This story I’ve only shared a few times as it’s difficult to explain to others why me and not another? I can’t answer this, but I’ve come to realize I don’t need to. I just need to give Him the glory for what he has done. I thank my heavenly Father every day for no pain, no meds, no tears, even as I was told it was only to get worse, not better, in the years to come. It’s been nearly one year and four months. How can I not speak a good word for my Lord!

My friends, I read somewhere that “difficulty is the very atmosphere of a miracle. It is a miracle in its first stage. If it is to be a great miracle, the condition is not difficulty, but impossibility!” I love this quote. It is the epitome of God’s miraculous hand upon his children when he performs a great work that is unexplainable. I am coming to know that there is so much more to knowing our God and so little I do know about his wondrous works and personal love for us. I get weepy as I think about how much more we can do in His name if we only trust in Him. So much more praise and glory could be ascribed to Him if we’d only allow Him into our lives with no reservations. Maybe, that is where I stepped into His presence on that day—where heart and mind said, “Use me, Lord, I am yours no matter what.”

To answer the question in Genesis 18:14, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” the answer to this is ABSOLUTELY NOT! Jesus’ word is, “Everything is possible for him who believes.” (Mark 9:23).

Even when He says “no” to my prayers, they are still a “yes” in my life. How’s this? Because if I’m going to trust in Him to give me His very best, then what He sends my way will always be the very “BEST” either way it comes. Let’s not give up praying for the very things that were placed on our hearts and especially those things we’ve put on the back burner thinking He hasn’t heard. Keep praying, for He listens and answers our prayers that are according to His will (1 John 5:14-15).

“This is God’s challenge to you and me each day. He wants us to think of the deepest, highest, and worthiest desires and longings of our hearts. He wants us to think of those things that perhaps were desires for ourselves or someone dear to us, yet have gone unfulfilled for so long that we now see them as simply lost desires. And God urges us to think of even the one thing that we once saw as possible but have since given up all hope of seeing fulfilled in this life” (from Messages for the Morning Watch, Streams in the Desert).

Those who believe in the Son of the Living God do so not because of the miracles or because demons shudder at his holy name, but in faith and trust do they believe (Mark 3:11-12; I John 3:1-3; 1 Peter 1:8,9; Mark 5:6-8; James 2:14-19; 1 John 5:4-6). “I tell you,” [Jesus] replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40).

Surely, we were created for more than the rocks.