THE IMPOSSIBLE TASK

By Shirley Wiggins

How do you achieve the impossible tasks?

From the beginning of this new year of 2013, I have felt the excitement growing in me that this could be the year for me.

That means that this is the year I kick out the ‘old’ me and welcome into the world the new me:  the me I can be if I let  God chisel to His Heart’s content that I might finally become the woman He created me to be:  obedient and unafraid, living life just as He always meant me to do.  And, oh yes:  organized.

Full of life, vigor, excitement, confident that by His grace and help I may now accomplish those tasks which will line up with His will for my life in the world in my generation.

I will blog faithfully, expanding my love of writing about Him and His Word.

I will be faithful to my roles as woman, wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, daughter-in-law, sister and sister-in-law, aunt, friend….

Uh-oh.    The first thing I notice is that this is an impossible task!   I get tired just listing all those roles and feeling the weight of the responsibilities that each one inherently entails.

Where do I start?!  And, how on earth will there be enough time to take care of everything?

 I am unequal to the task. Not only to my task of all my to-do’s but equally to the task of surrendering my selfish will to Him daily to be transformed  by His powerful love.

For an agenda of this size, I am going to need the Lord, my God.

Even before I picked up Mrs. Cowman’s precious devotional, Streams in the Desert¹, and read her encouraging words I knew that if the things on my list are to come to anything, it will be simply and completely by the grace and help of the Lord.

I was encouraged and strengthened immeasurably to read Mrs. Cowman’s words based on God’s words to Joshua recorded in the Book of Joshua.

“But the hill country shall be yours; though it is a forest, you shall clear and possess it to its farthest borders; for you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots and are strong.” Joshua 17:18 Amplified Bible.

Joshua.  Now there was a man with a seemingly impossible task!

The theme of the book of Joshua, according to the introduction in the Amplified Version Bible², is “the establishment of Israel in the promised land” of Canaan.

“Canaan … …. a land flowing with milk and honey.”  “Here Israel was planted to represent God among the nations.”³

“Canaanites” was a general term for all the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, which was the land God had promised originally through Moses to the Israelites, God’s chosen people. Before Moses died, Joshua had already been selected to carry out the task of leading the Israelites into the land of promise and to possess it in every sense of the meaning.

The Lord gave Joshua some strong commands and reassuring promises in Joshua 1:1-9 concerning his task.  Over all, the Lord told him to be strong, courageous and unafraid for just as He had been with Moses, so now He would be with Joshua in every way.  The Lord promised to make him successful and his way prosperous, but Joshua must mediate on the words of God day and night and obey His guidance and instructions.

The Israelites’ task was to stand strong against the Canaanites, and to go in and take possession of the land and all that it had to offer.  It had a lot to offer, for it was “a land flowing with milk and honey.” 

Both the Canaanite people and their pagan idols were to be destroyed completely… nothing left to distract the Israelites from their commitment and devotion to the God who gave them their lives.   He was their God and they were His people and He strictly warned them about losing sight of that important foundational truth and wandering away to intermingle with a pagan people who worshiped pagan symbols who were not  gods at all.

He told them exactly how to go in and take possession of what He was giving them.  He told them up front that they would have to do battle to ‘possess’ what He declared as theirs.

“For an agenda of this size, I am going to need the Lord, my God.”  Can’t you just imagine that would be the thought of Joshua and every single Israelite in the face of God’s directives?

They would need a plan and some discipline to follow the plan.  He promised them that He would be with them every step of the way and they were to be fearless in the process.

That is still the need of our lives today.  We need the Lord our God, Who gave us our lives as well, that He might be the constant companion of our days and our nights.

God has so many promises in the Bible of all that He will do today for us and in us if we will be strong, courageous, and unafraid.  But we, too, must meditate on His word day and night, and  obey His commands.

The ‘Canaanites’ in my own life are as strong as “iron chariots.”  They are my enemies of opposition.  They are those things, large or small, which distract me from God’s purpose and plan for my life; those things which though urgent may not be important but would keep me from accomplishing those things which are both urgent and important.

Our cluttered forests can be cleared and our way forward to the farthest borders can be opened that we may possess what God declares is ours.

I must not be too busy to read His Word since without Him I can do nothing.  But, with Him and through Him, I am able to accomplish all that He has called me to:  “With God, all things are possible.”

Ø  Step 1:   Start and end each day with the Lord my God. 

Ø  Step 2:   Take each day one at a time.  Slowly and intentionally, as step by step, He leads me to each new thing.

Ø  Step 3:    Praise Him loud and long, soft and strong!  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” 

Ø  Step 4:   Thank Him in everything and for everything.  He is God and there is no other. 

Ø  Step 5:   Prayerfully repeat steps one through four each day for the rest of my life. 

What is your excitement?  What is your calling?  What is your assignment?   Take out His love letter to you, the Bible, and ask Him to show you. 

Let’s encourage each other along the way.  I will pray for you, and please, would you pray for me, too?

¹  Streams in the Desert compiled by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman,©1965, Cowman Publications Inc.; pages 49-50.

² The Amplified Bible ®; ©1987 by The Lockman Foundation.

³ Halley’s Bible Handbook ®, Copyright ©1965; Pages 3,37.