Luke 18:27 And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.
True story! In 1940, a large and wonderful Christian family, the Rudolph's, announced the birth of their 20th baby! Though the baby was not expected to live, having been born prematurely and with polio, she defied all odds. She did live, but by the time she was four she had suffered polio, pneumonia and scarlet fever. This little girl was badly crippled with hardly any use of her left leg. While her brothers and sisters enjoyed running and playing outside, she was left confined to braces.
"Will I ever be able to run and play like the other children?" she asked her parents. "Honey, you only have to believe," they responded. "If you believe, God will make it happen." And she did! Now and again, she would practice walking without her braces with the aid of her siblings. On her twelfth birthday, she surprised her parents and doctors by removing her braces and walking around the doctor's office unassisted. She never wore braces again.
Her next goal was to play basketball. The coach only agreed to let her play as a means of getting her older sister on the team. She was given an outdated uniform, but she was allowed to work out with the other players. One day she approached the coach and promised him if he would give her an extra ten minutes of coaching each day, she would give him a world class athlete. He laughed, but seeing she was serious, half-heartedly agreed. Before long her determination paid off. She became one of the team's best players.
Her team went to the state basketball championships. One of the referees noticed her exceptional ability. He asked if she had ever run track. She hadn't. He encouraged her to try it. So after the basketball season she went out for track. She began winning races and earned a berth in the state championships.
At the age of 16, she was one of the best young runners in the country. She went to the Olympics in Australia and won a bronze medal for anchoring the 400-meter relay team. Four years later in Rome she won the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash and anchored the winning 400-meter relay team -- all in world-record times. She received the prestigious Sullivan Award as the most outstanding amateur athlete in America.
This is the amazing story of Wilma Rudolph, an Olympic gold medalist, who believed the promises of God.
We must never allow our circumstances to dictate what we can accomplish or who we can become! Let's believe the promises of God for our lives and be encouraged to move forward for him! All things are possible to them that believe!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]I’m not sure how much I enjoy the freezing weather here as we’re traveling across the United States, but I certainly can’t wait till Spring comes! On the Hebrew calendar Nisan is the month that transitions from winter to Spring.
Gas is going up…a lot. But your tank is the same size, and not filling up is not an option, unless you want to park in the shoulder lane, or leave the car in the garage. Leave the car in the garage (if you have a car)….now there’s an idea. Perhaps, this weekend, the best way to refuel is NOT to spend money on gas, or go driving somewhere!
“Some time ago, an advertisement appeared in which the devil was putting all his tools up for sale. On the day of public inspection, each one of his tools was marked with its selling price: Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Doubt, Lying, Pride, and so on, were each on the block. Set apart, however, from all the rest of the pile, was a harmless-looking tool, well-worn, but priced very high — it was discouragement!”
One of my favorite passages in the Scriptures is Psalm 1, and clearly this psalm holds an important key for our lives as believers to be fruitful and prosperous. That key is meditation. The psalmist describes the one who prospers as one who meditates “day and night”; a continual meditation developing the Godly habit of disciplining one’s mind in divine truth.
Over the years I’ve often gotten emails asking “When do you think revival will come?” Well…. first, what is “revival”, exactly? One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions is “a renewed attention to or interest in something”.
Approaching a new year always seems to carry a sense of adventure and expectation, although that attitude is not normally mixed with the level of trepidation we might be feeling just now. Moses’ successor Joshua, one of two faithful spies, seems to have embodied this sense of courageous expectation much of his life, but even he needed an extra dose of Divine encouragement as the Lord commanded him to cross the Jordan and take possession of the promised Land.
As we approach the New Year, we’re back to making New Year’s resolutions … but this year is a bit different, since it’s not only a New Year but a New Decade! During the past ten years we’ve seen such radical changes in our society; the definition of marriage, millennia-old norms of gender identity, bath and locker-room privacy, have all been affected by court decisions as a sea change in social mores has swept through the western world. People of Biblical faith are witnessing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s warning, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” [Isaiah 5:20]