Weekly Devotion - "Passion for the Impossible" - 2/23/15

Passion for the Impossible

by Lenae, GEMS Training Manager

Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:26-27).
 
Lilias Totter, trained in evangelism in the 1870s by Dwight L. Moody, gave her life to bringing the message. She began by serving poor girls in the inner city of London. She created programs and ran places that provided food, a place to sleep, rescue, Bible study, and prayer.
 
Then when she was almost thirty and bedbound while recovering from surgery, she prayed. And each time she did the Father pressed the words “North Africa” into her soul. While this was never part of her life plan, she obeyed. With two friends, they booked a boat to Algeria and set their faces toward a calling that was weighted with the impossible.
 
None of the women could pass the medical exam for the mission society, knew anyone in Algeria, or could understand a sentence of Arabic! Impossible! Yet they went. Fully devoted and dependent on their Sender, they entered Algeria with a threefold prayer. They asked the God for whom all things are possible for open doors (physical places), open hearts (a shift from apathy and hostility to welcome), and open heavens (that He would bring the harvest home).
 
For 38 years Lilias lived among and loved the Muslims of Algeria. In her last years, frail from a failing heart and restricted to bed, she prayed without ceasing. The map of Algeria and Tunisia that hung over her bed was inscribed with her own handwriting, “Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord that thou fulfill it.”
 
God is still looking for messengers He can use who have a passion for the impossible. Let’s not measure His sending by what seems feasible, realistic, or doable. Instead when we hear His assignment pressed into our hearts, let’s set our faces toward His calling and go. For this is not about what we can or cannot do. It’s about the movement of God who can open doors, hearts, and heaven to bring the lost home.   
 
Send Me: Have you previously dismissed an “impossible” calling from God? Return to it in prayer, and if He presses in and sends, go!
 
Let us dare to test God’s resources . . . Let us ask Him to kindle in us and keep aflame that passion for the impossible that shall make us delight in it with Him, till the day when we shall see it transformed into a fact. — Lilias Trotter
 
Using the Bible lessons from SHINE brightly? The second lesson in each issue introduces girls to missionaries. Encourage girls (and yourself!) to learn about ordinary missionaries who trusted an extraordinary God wherever they were sent.