The Perfect Coffee Mug and the God Who Makes the Impossible Bow

I did it!
I have been on a quest for the perfect personal coffee mug for a long, long time. (I am not talking about a special pair of mugs that Mary Ann and I share our "together" coffee with that have that special association that says, "this is together time for some great talking with my best friend and snuggler." Those mugs are different.) I am talking about that favorite, just me, enjoying my coffee while studying or taking quiet time mug. It has to be big, but not huge. It has to have a handle that allows three fingers through it comfortably---none of this tea cup stuff. It has to fill my hand and feel good. And it has to express me. Well, I found it at a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf this morning in Goleta on our way back from a trip. It has the simple text on it:

"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." -Lewis Carroll

I saw that mug and I knew! I looked at Mary Ann and she knew. It was so perfect. I have, over the last years, come to more and more believe and expect the impossible---because I have a God who demolishes the impossible before His name. In the last 7-8 months I have been a part of two cases of cancer disappearing; performing a marriage for a Godly couple that the community had, for the most part, written off years ago; seeing a friendship that would have ended in disaster if the world had its way be restored through love and forgiveness brought on by the Holy Spirit working in lives; seeing financial provision for many in a season when doom is being spoken; and so much more. And why should we expect less! We have a God who delights in showing Himself to His creation that they might return to Him! We have a God who sent His Son to destroy the works of the devil!

Does this mean we see every victory? No. Does this mean we don't win every battle? Yes. But those are umbrella statements about the whole course of the war. I am talking about our expectation for each individual battle before us. In each battle I enter I choose to expect the impossible to bow, because I know who my God is and I am seeking to do His will. The world tells us to consider something impossible because the world doesn't know the heart and character and nature and faithfulness and power and love of my God! What is impossible to the God who, with a thought and then a word, speaks a universe in to existence? What won't a God do who sends His Son to die for a rebellious, lost creation?

Impossible? I try not to entertain the meaning of that word! Impossible is what they would have told Gideon, or the woman with the issue of blood, or Moses at the banks of the sea, or David standing before Goliath. Impossible? Yes, if I leave God out of the picture, but, when in His will, the word "impossible" has no meaning. As a little framed picture in our bathroom says, "Faith is not believing that God can, it is knowing that He will." This is not "feel good" positive thinking. This is a simple anchoring in reality---and reality includes an active, loving, all powerful God.