Thursday, August 2, 2018
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Driving is never more exciting than it is during a major snow storm. In fact it is so exciting, you ought to avoid it. Sometimes you just can't. I was scheduled to speak at this retreat in the Poconos Mountains one January weekend and a major snow storm moved in right on the Friday when everyone was supposed to be traveling to Pennsylvania from New Jersey. So I waited all day for the call, I was sure it was going to come. "Sorry, it's been cancelled." Oh, I got the call; yeah, they were still going. And by that time it was dark, it was snowing very impressively and I got on the Interstate. I traveled at a very reduced speed and it looked almost impossible to make it until I spotted my friend up ahead. Well, my friend the snow plow. He was clearing a lane as he went. So I just fell in right behind Mr. Snow plow and followed him through the storm all the way to the Pennsylvania line. Oh, that works!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Way There's No Way."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Isaiah 43, verse 16. Here's what God says, "This is what the Lord says--He who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters" Verse 18, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." Now God is described here as "He who made a way." That's an exciting view of our Heavenly Father. He is the Way Maker when there's no way. Like when the Jews were on the bank of the Red Sea, every sense said, "It's over, no way."
There's been in recent years kind of a popular phrase, you know, people go, "No way" and somebody will go "Way". In other words, that's short for, "You're wrong. There is a way." Well right now you might be facing a seemingly impossible situation and you're shaking your head like the Jews at the Red Sea and you're saying "No way". Then there's this unexpected whisper from God's heart to yours, "Way". He usually doesn't tell you what the way will be or when it will be. He's just trying to assure you that He will make a way through mighty waters that seem overwhelming, unmovable, and through the desert, a place where you're like, "I don't see any resources here."
Now, if you've committed yourself to Jesus as your Savior, you belong to a way-making God. What does that mean? Well, you can't judge the outcome by how bad the situation is. Your Father can overrule that. You can't judge by how impossible it seems to be. It's only impossible by earth's standards.
But your God doesn't have impossible in His vocabulary. You can't judge by how late it is. You say, "Man, listen, there's not enough time for an answer now." Really? Well, God could do in an hour what men couldn't pull off in 50 years. So stand with Job on this conviction. It's in Job 42:2, "I know that you can do all things, Lord, no plan of yours can be thwarted." It's time to say, "Amen" right there.
One treacherous snowy night I looked ahead at a road that seemed impossible until I saw someone going ahead of me who could clear that road. One fearful day God's ancient people stood on the banks of the Red Sea trapped before the attacking armies of Egypt until they saw someone who could part a sea and bury an army and that very same God, the way-making God, is out in front of you.