Praying for the “Impossible”

When we think something is “impossible,” we may not pray for it at all. I think it’s time to change that.

God would remind us – as he does repeatedly in scripture – that for him there is nothing impossible. Nonetheless, in our own ways of thinking we often make things out to be “impossible.” We know, or at least suspect, that they are impossible for us, but even beyond that we have a difficult time envisioning them happening at all because we are restricting God to the ways we expect or anticipate him to work. Or we may believe we already know what God wants in a particular situation and thus regard anything else as “impossible.”

King Hezekiah loved the Lord and served him well in reviving and reforming the worship life of Israel. He was hard at work defending Jerusalem against the Assyrians, when at the age of 40 he received a grim message from the prophet Isaiah. “Set your house in order,” he said, “for you shall die; you shall not recover” (2 Kings 20:1). That sounds pretty definite, doesn’t it?

The way Hezekiah responded to this bad news of inevitable death is remarkable. He didn’t pray for healing, but neither did he simply resign himself to what must have appeared clearly to be God’s will for him. Scripture tells us that “then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘Now, O Lord, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly” (2 Kings 20:2,3).

On the surface it would appear that Hezekiah began to “bargain” with God, but in a recent WMPL staff Bible study we considered that he very possibly was doing something quite different. He was praying for the “impossible.” Humbly and privately, he recounted before the Lord how he had been blessed to walk with and faithfully serve him. Could it be that he wept so bitterly not because he was afraid to die, but because he was eager to continue his work for the Lord, believing that it was not yet finished? It’s easy to imagine these being his thoughts as he prayed, especially knowing that Jerusalem was still vulnerable to the threats of the Assyrians.

Hezekiah had “unfinished business,” and so, it would appear, did God. “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears,” God told him. “Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake” (2 Kings 20:5,6).

Now let’s jump forward 2800 years. Currently we are living in a time when so very many things seem “impossible,” even things we have previously done with regularity and relative ease. Due to pandemic restrictions, everything from getting together to getting a haircut is so very complicated. On a bigger scale here at WMPL, with nearly the whole world on “lockdown” and international travel at a standstill, we wonder how and when our global workers will return to the countries where they serve.

This is a time to exercise exceptional prayer, a time to pray for the impossible. It is a time for “commissioned living,” acknowledging the unfinished business of reaching the lost of the world with the gospel, and aligning ourselves with the very purposes of God, even when we cannot see the path forward. Let us consider those who remain outside of God’s grace, millions of them removed from any witness to the gospel, and weep. God will hear our prayers and see our tears.

The challenges before the World Mission Prayer League are formidable. We need to reach, inspire, disciple and send a new generation of believers. Our home staff teams for mobilization and administration need workers to replace those who will soon be retiring, and we wonder from where God will provide those who will help plan and then take on the creation of a “sequel” to our 82-year-old organization. Some have wondered, I’m sure, if perhaps it is impossible. But God loves to answer prayer! He also knows when he needs to challenge and change us. For many months our prayers for a desperately-needed staff accountant went unanswered. But when we changed the way we sought out that worker, God provided!

Now is a time, my friends, to pray for the “impossible,” to weep for it, and then, by God’s grace, to work – and perhaps even change – for the same. We have “unfinished business.” The work to which God called our founders many decades ago, and for which he commissioned the disciples many centuries ago, is not yet finished. The key is to make sure that our goals are aligned with God’s goals, for where there is God’s will there most certainly is a way! God himself is not done yet! For the sake of his covenant and for the sake of those still without the Savior, he will do the “impossible.”