Impossible to Unbelievable

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

God wants to take you from the mundane to the impossible to the unbelievable.

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. I kidded about a GED being our diploma and an actual High School diploma being an advanced degree. There wasn’t and still isn’t much opportunity in small-town America. It seems like the only path to real success is either being born into the family business or starting one. I was a kid like everyone else in my class; my future wasn’t bleak; it was confining.

Somewhere along the line, I started to understand that impossible was just a word. It wasn’t because I looked at the impossible as something to be done, as it was that I looked at my past and saw that I had done things that I would have thought impossible; the impossible became unbelievable.

Joshua 1:9, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

I was the kind of kid that people would say; he might get out of High School, but he will never get accepted into college. If he does somehow get accepted, he doesn’t have the tenacity or ability to graduate. Graduate School, not a chance he could get in. I was average, and dreams were bigger than me. I looked at these achievements as impossible, but other people had done it, why not me?

FULTON’s FOLLY

The great thing about chasing the impossible is there is no shame in failure; it is almost expected. In the early 1800s, there was a painter named Robert Fulton. Robert studied art in Paris and London but wasn’t successful in getting commissions to paint. He married the daughter of the American Ambassador to France, Robert Livingston. Mr. Livingston had seen one of Mr. Fulton’s drawings of a submarine and suggested that he go into the business of designing steamboats.  Robert Fulton then had a vision of building a steamboat that would carry passengers up and down the Hudson River. The problem was that no one had ever done that; it was impossible. Steamboats were dangerous and unstable; they were in the realm of hobbies and toys. They had novelty value and nothing more. Fulton had not invented the steamboat; he would be the first person to make it commercially viable.

On August 17, 1807, the Fulton steamboat the Clermont made history. The small, snub-nosed boat made the 150-mile run from New York City to Albany in 32 hours. Regular passenger service was inaugurated, and a new era in water transportation began.

Robert Fulton’s great quest is now known historically as Fulton’s Folly. How would you like to fail on a scale so large that your name becomes a historic by-word? But his name is not a historic by-word because of his many failures; it was his one great success; the impossible became unbelievable. Robert Fulton went from a failed artist to the father of water transportation.

DREAMS AND VISIONS

Dreams are things you see in your sleep and dissipate like the morning fog once you arise. Visions are those haunting thoughts that won’t let sleep come quick enough.  Visions are ideas do delicious; you can’t stop thinking about them. Visions are not always impossible, but many seem that way. To change a vision to reality, you need resources, time, and chance. Visions of greatness start as impossibilities. They are long shots beyond our reach. There is so much that has to go right and so little that needs to go wrong that the prize is scarcely worth the effort.

2 Timothy 1:7, “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

THE POSSIBLE

Well, I did graduate from college, then I did it again, then I graduated from graduate school. I didn’t get to go to Frat parties or throw a Frisbee across the quad; I worked nights as an Orthopedic Technician in Surgery at a trauma center.  I did it because I had this vision in my head that said this was the direction I was to go. God had a plan for me before I knew what life was about. As a result, I ran companies and built companies; I traveled all over the world. Impossible was a thing I hadn’t done yet. I have never done anything that has never been done before me; I have only done things that I thought I could never do. Now I look back at my life and shake my head; unbelievable. If my sixteen years old self could see me now, what would they think?

Matthew 19:26 “Jesus looked at them and replied, ‘This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible.”’

All things are possible to those that believe. God made each of us amazing creatures, capable of accomplishing almost anything to which we set our minds. The major constraint before us is not an opportunity, or resources, or chance; it is the will to live the life God created us to live. Something is impossible until you do it, then it becomes unbelievable. I am always amazed at things that I would never have expected I could do that seem mundane once I have done them; mountains do not look as tall from the top as they do from the bottom.

Stop fearing the impossible and start chasing the unbelievable. Become the person that people say, “If they say they are going to do it, it might be unbelievable, but not impossible.” Be the person God made you be.

Matthew 17:20, “And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible to you.”