With God All Things Are Possible

Luke 1:37 “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

For the past several years I have been praying for something. It seemed like an important thing to begin praying for at the time.  The way that events unfold in our lives at times leave little to doubt that they are a “God Thing.” We know that without the intervention of God some things just will not happen. What I prayed for has come to be. And for that I thank God through whom all things are possible. Amen.

This is going to be a story of faith about Andy (my son) and Forest (me). Andy was a slightly rebellious child. His mother and I called him Bear because he could be stubborn, obstinate, and just plain bull-headed at times. I am not sure where he gets that from ;-) Nonetheless he is my son and I love him. He sometimes had a difficult time with life as the child of divorced parents. He joined the US Army the day he turned 18, much to our disappointment. His mother and I tried to talk him into many other things and any other branch of the armed service. But Andy did things his own way. He was, and always will be in my prayers.  I have prayed for his faith to return to what it was when he was a young child.  I have prayed for his safety while he was in boot camp and jump school. I just do not understand why someone would want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.  And then he was deployed to Afghanistan. There were more prayers for his safety and for his faith to not be shaken by what he could and would experience while at war. We would chat of Facebook, and I tried to point him to prayer and study of the Word with every opportunity. He would always tell me that he was praying. I can honestly say I was not convinced it was happening.  I knew he was a young man standing in harms way and many things could happen to destroy his faith.  One day I received a phone call from his brother Matthew asking me if I had heard what had happened to Andy. This is never the way for a good conversation to start.  Matthew told me that Andy stood accused by the Army of murdering an innocent unarmed Afghani man.  My life came to a screeching halt. Time stopped for me for a while. How could this be?  Why was this going on?  These and a million other questions popped into my brain along with prayers, and more prayers.  It was several weeks before I was able to talk to Andy.  He told me he was innocent of what he was accused of. We talked about his faith and prayer life.  I was not left with the impression that it was much different than before.  He finally was transferred to a military jail in Fort Lewis Washington and several weeks after arriving in Fort Lewis he was able to give me a call.  And the most amazing thing happened.  He told me that “maybe his life had to come to a screeching halt for God to get through to him.”  I am glad I was sitting down for that one.  He told me he was spending lots of time reading his bible and asked where I thought he should start to focus his reading.  A thought popped into my head, ROMANS! So I told Andy to look closely at Romans. The apostle Paul wrote it while in prison, maybe it would click with Andy. A few weeks later he told me it had clicked.  Praise God through whom all blessings flow!  I can without out hesitation tell you that I would not have chosen this as a path to faith for Andy. But I am not God, only God is God and he knows best what to do for Andy I just have to have faith because with God all things are possible.

More on this story to come in the next devotional.

PRAYER:  Thank You Father for Your miracles, great and small. Thank You for Your gift of Faith regardless of how it is delivered. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen