Impossible!

"When God wants to do an impossible task, he takes an impossible man, and he crushes him." This notable quotation is from Alan Redpath, who moved to the U.S. from England in 1953 to become the pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago where he served for nine years. He then returned to Great Britain serve in Edinburgh, Scotland, but suffered a near-fatal stroke in 1964. He was able to recover but suffered from deep depression for a period afterwards, even while serving in important administrative positions. Did he consider himself that impossible man?

When I think of what Dr. Redpath said, I am reminded of Gideon in the Bible. The Midianites, an enemy nation, were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in mountain dens and caves. When the Israelites sowed their crops, marauders from the east would arrive, as thick as locusts, and they camped in the land and destroyed the crops. They stayed until the land was stripped bare, leaving the Israelites with nothing to eat, even taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. .So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. An impossible situation! So God selected an "impossible" man.

Gideon was threshing wheat one day, at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!” “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”

Then the Lord turned to him (because it was indeed the Lord) and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”

“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!” Gideon knew his people were in an impossible situation, and yes, he would be an impossible man!

The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”

Gideon was not easily convinced. Even after miraculous demonstrations of God's ability to do the impossible, he was reluctant. Gideon saw the angel touch with the tip of his staff the meat and bread Gideon had brought for his guest to eat. Fire flamed up from the rock and consumed it all. He saw a wool fleece soaking wet with morning dew while the ground around it was dry; then he saw the fleece remain dry while the surroundings were wet with dew.

Gideon assembled an army of 32,000 men but God wanted them to know they were still dealing with an impossibility, and that victory would not be something they achieved on their own. God instructed Gideon to cut down the troops by sending home those who were afraid, 22,000 of them. That left 10,000—still too many. A test of watchfulness while drinking, probably at the well of Harod or the stream there, further diminished the number, leaving only three hundred. Now it was indeed an impossible situation!

Equipping the men with swords and lamps hidden in clay pots, they entered the enemy camp. Read the story yourself (Judges 6 through 8); it is exciting history of God doing the impossible through an insignificant, "impossible" man.

MaryMartha (Thanks, cousin R.!)
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Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com