Is Anything Too Hard For God?

In the book of Genesis, Abraham is promised a nation, but it's not until near the fulfillment of that promise that God promises Abraham that he will have a son through Sarah.

Sarah's response is famous, and her laughter defines the meaning of her son's name. She responded to God's promise with human instincts, but those human instincts offered some pretty compelling evidence.

Sarah has always been barren. From her youth she has been unable to conceive a child. And if that weren't enough, she's well past menopause. She couldn't have children when all of her peers were, but now that none of her peers are capable of having children either because of their age, she's suddenly able to have one? We have two counts of physical impossibility. 

Nothing in the human plain offers any wisdom to believing in this promise. The only assurance is in the One who gives it. But as it turns out, there's even more compelling evidence for trusting Him than all the impossibility the world can offer. 

God asks why Sarah laughed--He knows all the reasons, but He also knows she's forgetting the only truth that matters, and He poses it as a question. "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" (Gen. 18:14). 

Her reaction said yes, but the reality is that this is the God who formed the entire world with a word. What in the world could be more powerful than the One who spoke it into existence? 

When it doesn't make sense to us, nothing is too hard for God. God has a plan beyond our earthly vision, and He will do as He says He will.

These words are echoed in Jeremiah 32.

Let's set the scene. Jerusalem is under Babylonian siege. Things are looking bleak, especially to Jeremiah, who has been receiving this message of judgement and destruction. And in the midst of this, God commands Jeremiah to purchase land. Land that is about to be overtaken by their enemy. 

Jeremiah is faithful to the command, but he follows it with a prayer. In his prayer he remembers God's power, recounting His creation, His omniscience, His signs and wonders, His restoring Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land, and even His work in the ongoing siege. He ends verse 17 with the admonition, "Nothing is too hard for you."

Because Jeremiah needs those words. He is declaring His faith, he is declaring the power of God, but he is also expressing his confusion. He ends this testimony of faith with a but. "Yet," he says in verse 25, "you, O Lord GOD, have said to me, "Buy the field for money and get witnesses--though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.'" 

He expresses faith, but he still has questions. Because even though he knows who God is, His command doesn't seem to make sense with the current circumstances. 

God answers Jeremiah in verse 27 first by affirming what he already knew. He says, "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?"

The next couple paragraphs unfurl a picture of judgement and destruction, and yet God ends with the promise of restoration. He promises to gather the people back from exile to "dwell in safety," He promises to make an everlasting covenant with them, He promises that He will not turn away but that He will change their hearts and do good to them, and He promises that they will one day purchase land in their home again. 

This is why Jeremiah purchased land though he lacked understanding at first; his obedience was a sign of the promise laid out in verses 43 and 44. God says, "Fields shall be bought in this land of which you are saying, 'It is a desolation, without man or beast; it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.' . . . For I will restore their fortunes."

Why is this important? Because this is the very nature of God. We serve a God of the impossible. A God who is bigger than the impossible. And a God who often asks us to hold what doesn't make sense from our perspective, trusting in His goodness. 

We need the encouragement of this reality. When a relationship or circumstance seems too broken for restoration. When a hope seems too far fetched. When the Kingdom work feels almost pointless. When our security feels lost. Whatever it is, if God is in it and leading us towards it, all we need to know is who He is, not how the situation looks. 

This phrase from Scripture came to me as I prayed for someone to come to Christ.

At times praying for a loved one to be saved can feel impossible. Sometimes it feels like they're getting further and further away. Sometimes they seem too resistant, too opposed to God. Sometimes the years drag into decades and the story becomes more and more distant from God. 

We do not know who will be saved. Often that thought discourages us. We know salvation is not in our control, and the person in front of us doesn't want it. But this can also be our comfort. Because we know we serve a God who saves, and He has asks us to press in, believing that anyone could be saved.

Trusting God will never fail us, but sometimes it feels like it could. Like the cost of belief is too high. How much greater is that in terms of salvation? Our hope for our loved ones to find eternal life. The costs of desires--the marriage, the baby, the ministry, the job, etc.--can feel high, affecting our lives, but this is life itself. We have no guarantees--salvation is not promised--and our soul cannot bear the weight of hope deferred. And so we can be tempted to take a strange comfort in the impossible, dismissing our hope because it seems like it can only let us down. But take heart, nothing is too hard for God.

God is with us in it all, and He is trustworthy. Where His heart is, we need no other affirmation to hold us secure in following Him. 

But how do we do this when our lives' circumstances seem to contradict His heart at every turn? The ESV Study Bible's commentary on Jeremiah 32 says Jeremiah responds to what he doesn't understand by "rehears[ing] God's saving acts." That's the key: remembering who God is. Lifting Him above our circumstances and our perceptions. Reminding our hearts that He is greater and His ways are greater; on Him is where we must rely.

The ESV's commentary says of Genesis 18, "the walk of faith involves looking our difficult circumstances in the face and, with the promise of God, defying the discouragements, disappointments, and frustrations that tempt us to abandon hope in God. Nothing is too hard for God. Indeed, he has already done the hardest thing, in becoming one of us and dying for us (Rom 5:9-10; 8:32); shall he fail to care for us in a thousand lesser ways?" 

When the stakes are this high, it doesn't feel like a "lesser ways" scenario, but the debt has already been paid. The greatest impossibility has been accomplished. Salvation for a loved one is big. It's too big for us, but it's not too big for God. Even individual salvation doesn't compare to the cross. Christ secured His victory, and He will not fail now to care for us in everything else. He restores. He heals. He blesses. He has made His Name known in hearts and not just minds throughout history, and He can do that now too.  He is our only hope, and nothing is too hard for Him.