Today’s Scripture Reading (March 12,
2013): Psalm 108
I remember
standing outside my Junior High School (or Middle School) and watching the cars
pass in front of me. Sir John A. MacDonald Junior High School sits on a fairly
busy corner of a large city, so part of what I was doing was watching the cars
go by. I was probably about twelve years of age and I wanted more than anything
to be the one behind the wheel of one of the vehicles that I was watching pass
in front of me. I could not wait until the day came when I would be able to
drive – but I was also not confident that I had the ability to keep the car
within the lines painted on the road. As a twelve year old, it seemed to me to
be an impossible task (but one that I could not wait to try.) Two short years
later, with my Dad sitting beside me and my brand new learner’s permit in my
wallet, I had the opportunity to try to drive a car. And it did not seem to
take long before I felt like I was a master at the job of keeping the car
between the painted lines. What was impossible, had quickly become possible.
I play the
guitar (or at least I try to.) And I have to admit that there are songs that I
have given up trying to play because they are just too hard (or I might even
say – impossible.) Yet, I also know that every once in a while I have tried to
play songs that I once thought were impossible for me to play – and I realized
that I could play the song. Something happened in my guitar playing abilities
so that the impossible once again became the possible.
David asks
God’s question in this Psalm. The question is this – who is it that is willing
to go into Edom and enter into the fortified city. Edom was an enemy of Israel,
so entering into the country all by itself was an act of war. And there is no
doubt about the city that David was talking about. It was Petra. Petra was a
city built among the rocks in the country of Edom – just across the border from
Israel. Edom was not content to allow Israel to exist as a nation – but to
attack Edom you had to attack Petra – and that was impossible. So the real
question that God was asking Israel was this – who is it among you that is willing
to attempt the impossible for me. I think it is probable that as David wrote
down God’s question that his own memory returned to a day decades earlier when
a young boy walked out against a giant named Goliath to meet him in battle. It
was an impossible task, and yet David did not even consider not attempting it.
If God was with him, there was no way that he could fail.
Will you
attempt the impossible for me is a question that God continues to ask. The
truth is that while Petra eventually fell and became a historic footnote, in every
day of our lives there seems to be something that God wants us to do that seems
impossible. And the message that we need to hear is that we cannot allow
ourselves to be defined by the things that we consider to be impossible –
because with effort even the impossible can fall before us – and the God who
sets the impossible in front of us has always been known in history as the God
of the Impossible.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm
109
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