-C.S. Lewis from _The Screwtape Letters_: “It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

– Solomon 2:15 Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.”

How do little foxes equal bears? How do cards equal murder? The key is that the basic function of life is not as humans see it. In the human view, murder is obviously worse than cards or a lie. The real key to understand the seeming discrepancy is the connection to Jesus as a critical necessity, an eternal necessity. A lie can separate us from Jesus because it is a step out of heaven and away from Jesus. The lie is getting on the pathway to murder because it is choosing the path to death. “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James 1:13-15 ESV https://www.bible.com/bible/59/jas.1.13-15.esv

Lying, in the human view of small sins, is the complete plant, including death, in seed form. It is the choice which kills because it comes from the heart and equal to the sin of murder which was within the seed when it was chosen. We know that we are growing corn when we plant a corn seed, an olive tree when we plant an olive seed. The physical is an image of the spiritual. The seed we choose/plant, is the one we will grow, physically or spiritually.

Choices toward the Lord or away from Him are complete seeds. They will bear fruit in our lives. That fruit will be good or evil according to the seed. A good plant will not bear bad fruit and vice versa. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.” James 3:10-12 ESV https://www.bible.com/bible/59/jas.3.10-12.esv

Marriages often die because of a cumulative effect of small choices, the little foxes. As Lewis says, “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” Marriages require an active work ethic, a constant effort to make it healthy and viable. Marriage is a concrete example of a living relationship with Jesus. “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” John 3:12 ESV https://www.bible.com/bible/59/jhn.3.12.esv Marriage is an example to teach us about our heavenly relationship.

The above can sound pretty hopeless to anyone who is self aware and understands how many bad choices he or she makes on a regular basis. For me, the number of bad choices by the end of breakfast can be daunting/intimidating. We are growing good crops and bad crops at the same time. It may be impossible to measure the seeds we’ve sown or the amounts. However, we have been given the greatest gift of all, mercy from heaven and the gift of repentance. Any bad seed in our lives can become good through repentance and forgiveness in Christ. Just like we, destined for hell without the salvation of Christ, find that all our seed are the same. As we are redeemed, our seed can be redeemed. The joy of maintaining a healthy and viable relationship with Jesus is total redemption, our selves and our seed.

The greatest testimonies I’ve ever heard or shared were horrible people turned to heavenly emissaries and terrible choices turned to producing heavenly fruit. The true joy of salvation is that it operates every day in every way because Jesus never fails and His love is beyond measure.

I’ve been a re-enactor for a while, working with the museum and the Blue Grey Army. The Blue Grey Army is the organization who organizes the Olustee Festival ever year in Lake City, Florida. Olustee was the largest Civil War Battle fought in Florida. The Civil War is currently being emotionally refought through the politics and popular action groups of the current time. Viewing past life and culture creates skewed insights when viewed through modern eyes, even in the Bible. The truth in the Bible is spoken for all time, but the events were for the time and culture of the time they occurred. Culture and experience change, but the truth of God remains continuously faithful forever.

Looking at history requires finding the artifacts and interpreting them. Interpreting them through our current knowledge, vantage point, and priorities can cause us to misunderstand as much, if not more than we understand. I think it is important to look behind the scenes. By that, I mean to ask the questions about the spiritual influences behind the human manifestations. I use the Bible as the standard, and I use a short cut, Galatians 5:19-23. These verses provide two lists, one through which we can see the footprint or image of the enemy, “works of the flesh;” and the other, “the fruits of the spirit,” the footprint or image of God. These two lists help me quickly assess the artifacts or content I am evaluating.

Looking back at the Civil War, we can see the footprints of both throughout the North and the South. We can look and see the causes of cruelty from one person to another, the corruptions in authority and governments, the media and its role, and the bravery and love that occurs in the middle and around the cruelty. We can clearly see that this world has been and is a spiritual battleground in which all persons are given a choice of who they will serve, the enemy and their own selfish desires, or love and the purpose and plan of God. 

Sadly enough, it is easier to look back and prefer the color of the uniform, the region of the country, the popular feelings of the time, and the other convenient views than it is to seek to understand how people chose or were manipulated into moving in one spiritual direction or another. Naturally this oversimplifies things because I think very few, if any, are completely evil or completely good. Normal humans are a mixture of both, fighting internally the same battle which becomes external and manifests to everyone in their sphere of influence.

We can see the footprints in every generation. Every generation has their slaves, their wars, their champions and their heros.  The faces change. The cultures and technology change. The sorrows and joys change with the fluctuations in the countries and the circumstances. However, the sources remain the same. Man’s inhumanity to man continue through the selfish manifestations of pride and works of the flesh. Redemption, hope, healing, and all forms of rescue come through Jesus in the fruits of the spirit. The trail of evidence is clear in every generation. The question isn’t refighting or redefining the choices people in the past made, but what choices we make.

We can see what happened in the past because the events then are complete. We can even see or infer the spiritual realities that pushed people in the directions they traveled. All their choices are relevant today because we face the same true enemy to peace, hope, and harmony. We are at war today, the same spiritual war that has been fought since the beginning of man. It is not a political party. It is not a region or cultural preference. It is not art or music or clothing styles. All those things might reflect some images of the war, but they are not the war. The true war is against the “spiritual forces of evil.”

The people of our historical past, all of them, amaze me. The people of our current generation amaze me. Each person’s story is worth telling, as I say at the museum all the time. There is still much left to do. We’ve grown some, gone backward some, and left ourselves with many challenges left to overcome. Jesus lived and died and rose again to bring us into the freedom and joy He wants for us. The best way to fight and maintain joy, is to hold on to Him as we move forward and become history ourselves.

I guess everyone has had a business experience that is far less than satisfactory. Recently I had one with a twist to it. I went to a business to have a repair done. The number quoted me was more than three times what it actually cost to have the repair completed. I was given bad numbers and charged fees for work not done. I was angry and extremely disappointed because I had a long term association with this business.

I received my first miracle when I was shocked by the price. I did not lose my temper, yell, and use all the bad words that always seem so close to the surface. The agent was very polite to me and evidently concerned with my disappointment. I have to add at this point that no person at this business was rude to me at all or at any time. I even received a gift basket. My problem was that the numbers given to me were outrageous and out of line with anything reasonable or fair.

I talked with several persons in authority in the business. All were very polite to me. I quoted them prices from like businesses. I gave them the benefit of my comparison shopping, being careful to compare like to like. However, the number confusion was never resolved. I was offered freebies and discounts and generous benefits. I was offered meandering justifications which didn’t really address the issue, but all pointing to their view that they had done nothing wrong. I was offered everything but the one thing I needed to re-establish trust – the truth about the numbers. 

I did not want freebies because that would be dishonest, like a bribe. It would be like me manipulating them out of a price for selfish reasons. They would have to explain and justify their discounts and gifts to their superiors if their numbers were real, based on the requirements of their business. I needed a fair price for a fair job so I could live with myself and they could maintain a profitable business. My long term relationship with this business needed the trust they cost me through this experience. I had the repair done elsewhere for less than a third of the cost quoted me.  I found someone else I could trust. 

Here came the twist. I know I can shop around and go to other businesses, and will and did. Why did this happen? Why did I need a simple repair done by a business who has known me for years and have such a wild outcome? The answer was because I believe it was about blessing. That was my surprise. I had a reputation with the business which should have caused them to consider my complaint.

A business without integrity operates under a curse. Customers are hurt, bitter, and create bad feelings in the community. Employees are hurt by the oppression of falsehoods, lies, and coverups.  I was put in the odd position of giving a business a choice – blessing or curse – integrity or unfair charges. I felt that God wanted to bless this business during my time in prayer. I was to take them an opportunity to be blessed in the forms of forgiveness and integrity. He wanted them to choose between integrity and unfair charges.

A repair business who has integrety has no lack in business. People will carve a path to their door. Their employees, knowing they have fair prices for fair work, do not have the oppression faced by employees of companies lacking integrity. The business, the employees, and the community would all profit from a business with integrity.  God’s way really works and works to benefit everyone in every direction. 

God wanted the business to choose the path that He could bless. I was choreographed into a situation because God wanted to bless a business so the business could be a blessing. His goal wasn’t judgment for punishment like we often think of Him. This twist is a change in perspective. We, as individuals, are often brought to a point of choice for the same reason, allow God to remove the curse so we can walk in His blessing. We punish ourselves through our wrong choices. God brings that to our attention so He can free us and bless us.

Exodus. Perspective.

The miracles in Exodus are so much more than we tend to notice. The plagues on Egypt were powerful miracles. However, even more so, the miracles started and stopped when Moses said and only involved those intended. Each detail involved another layer of miracle. Pharaoh cried about the frogs and asked that they be stopped. Moses said when. Pharaoh said tomorrow. Moses said okay, and that is when the frogs died and stopped. The plague of frogs was a miracle, as was the time it started and the time it stopped.

Manna was an amazing miracle. Food dropped from heaven to feed the more than million people traveling through the wilderness. More amazing was that you couldn’t keep it overnight without it rotting and providing worms – except on the night before the sabbath. Manna fell every day but the sabbath. Those who gathered too much had enough for their meals, and those who didn’t gather enough had no lack.  There was so much more to each miracle than what we typically consider the miracle.  One omer of manna was kept as a testimony, and it never went bad. The manna was provided forty years until they arrived where food was abundant. Then, it suddenly stopped and never happened again.

Here is the question: How much more goes in to everything God does for us than we first see or consider?

God set me free from alcohol. That was the smallest part of the miracle. I was given compassion for the people I had betrayed and misused due to the drinking, which was a bigger miracle. I began to build honest relationships and found the people around me generously giving me far more than I had tried to manipulate out of them while I was drinking, a bigger miracle. I found that the reduction in lying made sleeping easier and the oppression of living much less. The doorway to work opened, and I had become reliable enough to keep the job, another miracle. The list could go on and on. I’ve been clean and dry for decades, and my gratitude has only broadened and deepened for all the work that went in to that portion of my clean up and restoration. God’s way works.

Sometimes it is easy to be superficial about the miracles in our lives. It is easy to forget how much work must go into laying a foundation so a bridge between past and future can be built. It is easy to forget how many obstacles have to be overcome to do something which appears so simple on the surface. It is easy to say I will buy a car until you try to. Then you learn about loans, insurance, payment plans, legal paperwork, and so much more. Nothing is as simple as we want it to be.

God never loses or forgets a prayer. He moves mountains in lives to build the bridges and the tracks to get us to a better life in Him. His life works. It is simpler to trust Him than it is to rely on an oversimplistic perspective. It is always a good day to count our miracles and blessings to build trust in the One who is trustworthy. He does so much more than we typically see.

Recently I went to a men’s Bible study gathering. The theme of the conversation was in taking charge of our thought life. “Thoughts are like birds flying overhead. We may not control those  thought flights, but we have power to choose the ones that want to build a nest on our heads,” said one of the men.

Some of the verses were extremely positive and encouraging like Ph 4:8, the prescription for good mental health. However, by the end of the meeting, I was already frustrated. I had turned inspiration into condemnation. 

There is a razor’s edge in perception between seeing what can be done and seeing what you haven’t done. What can be done is inspiring. What you haven’t done is easily condemning, followed by its best friend – shame. In an extremely short moment, the qualities of God are replaced by the realization of Satan. Humanity knows its own death and limitations.

I realized that I had gotten off track pretty quickly, was strugglihng with all the thoughts I hadn’t brought under control, and began to pray. The condemnation had arrived because I was considering only what I could do, were I god or in total control – the viewpoint of pride. Scripture tells me that my best on my best day, with everything going my way, isn’t good enough. It is not about what I can do, but what the Lord has done and is doing. 

For me, it means surrender. Surrender in this instance is the realization that bringing my thoughts under control isn’t going to happen by my efforts alone. My success depends on my surrendering to the Lord and realizing that my best isn’t good enough. He is what I need. The work and ministry of the Holy Spirit is what I need. There is no area in my life in which I am capable of saving myself. I need a savior. I need Jesus. Asking Jesus into my thoughts, making room for Him on the couch of my heart’s inmost living room, is the most important act of my will.

Jesus has been turning my condemnation back into inspiration where He intended it in the first place. My reliance on Him can give me peace during the process of my growth, before I get to the goal destination. Today is a day of inspiration, not because of the life todo or get better list, but because of the person of Jesus.who walks with us each minute, despite our inabilities. He is taking thoughts, experience, and life and transforming them into something better than we can do for ourselves. Jesus is inspiration

New Year’s (or any) resolutions can be very revealing. Part of the revealing is what is chosen, things to do or things not to do. The deeper revelation is what is buried under the choices – the attitudes. Am I managing my appearance to myself and others, or am I truly desiring change. If I say to myself I’m desiring change, what change is it, a behavior or the attitude which sustains a behavior? What level of my life am I examining? How deep am I willing to go? How much mud will get on my boots from wading through my excuses toward the truth of the matter?

I’m curious. Here’s an example. I set a goal to lose weight, say twenty-five pounds. Diet starts. The discipline hurts, but it’s not too bad. The first five pounds drop pretty easily. Now comes the challenge. I want to celebrate my success. The natural choice for celebration – cheat on the diet. It’s so perfectly self-defeating. A little success in any direction of any goal creates an opportunity to back up on the goal.

Why does success turn into an excuse to step back from succeeding? What does this say about the real desire – snack sneaker or healthy eating? I’m really curious as to how my mind works, especially since I often don’t take time to examine and question it. Somehow it makes sense, if you’ve lost five pounds, go to Dairy Queen and get a blizzard. Did I lose the weight to get DQ, or did I lose the weight for a better reason? What is the heart of my thinking, and what does it reveal to me about my true motives? Why would cheating in the direction of failure be considered a reward?

I can turn this example into a more spiritual image. What would it look like? I can pray devotedly for five days in a row at the same time each day so I can avoid prayer for the next five days? Be righteous and serve God a little so He will excuse a little sin on the side? Who am I really in my heart, the fat guy trying to wear skinny jeans or the thin guy trying to get rid of the fat suit? Or am I the guy looking to get my heart right? I look for ways and excuses to cheat when it is about weight. My soul is vulnerable to the appetites of the body. I’m convicted by my attitude.

This brings me back to the spiritual example. Am I identifying with the sinner-self who wants to get away with stuff, or the saint-self who wants the sin conquered? The saint doesn’t want an excuse to go backward. Now I find the truth in the matter. I’m broken. I won’t move in the right direction without help, help from someone who understands why and how I can’t be trusted to completely get on board with the right attitudes.

No matter how good I am, or how long I sustain a record for being good, failure resides. I am a cheater in the hands of a merciful God who will continue my discipline until the diet is complete and my rescue accomplished. My faith is in His victory becoming ever more my own. Trusting in self is a sure loss, only a matter of time before the flesh cheats. Trusting in Jesus is guaranteed success. Jesus never surrenders to failure. His goal for each of us is the true health of freedom from sin.

There is very famous martial arts actor who made some very popular and successful films. In addition to his fame, he has earned an infamous reputation as an egotistical bully who is difficult, if not impossible, to work with. He apparently has gained a long list of fellow successful actors who will not work with him or speak any kind words about him. They tell that this actor demands that all others on the set bow and give place to his egotistical demands. Failure to meet the egotistical demands are met with a variety of responses from physical to emotional, and all vicious.

I began to realize that this professional warrior, a highly trained and skilled martial artist, has failed in his first true war. His first true war was with himself. He was conquered and made a slave to his own ego through his humanity and the enemy of humanity. The ego not only rules over him, his relationships, his career, but it also continually tries to force others to obey it. The ego had become a power in his life almost like a character in his movies. It had become so powerful that it (if it could be treated like a personality) moved to rule, not only him, but all around him.

Failure to conquer his own spirit has been having a horrendous effect. His movies have dropped out of the mainstream. The people willing to work with him have become far less. His career has entered a slide and appears to be continuing. His reputation, covered by his early successes, is now fully exposed as to its true quality. The destruction has arrived. The call to repentance could not be more clear. The most frightening part of this story – from the perspective of those of us who examine the health of our own souls – is that every one can see the condition of his life more easily than he can himself, even if the clues seem overwhelming.

Salvation is an individual experience. It only becomes an influence to others after it has taken effect inside the individual. The first territory salvation conquers is the self, and that conquering is to free us from the very kinds of destruction this actor is facing – pride. It is one thing to be enslaved by the failings of others, but I think it far worse to be enslaved by your own. Who can you blame? Where can you hide? Where can you go? Who can have an objective view of your condition when your perspective is corrupted within you? There is only one true source of rescue – Jesus.

Jesus sees the truth, reveals the truth, but with the compassion it takes to get us from brokenness to health. His goodness and love bring us to repentance, the kind of love that takes us from bondage to freedom.

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”

Proverbs 16:18, 25, 32 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/pro.16.18-32.ESV

Snape is one of my favorite characters in fiction. He is phenomonally faithful, sacrificial, courageous, and so much more, in all the worst places without any recognition until the very end. He loved Lily Potter from childhood on. He hated James Potter who married Lily, and, by circumstance, their son Harry, except that Harry had Lily’s eyes. 

Snape had to rescue Harry though the course of the books despite Snape’s frustration because he was faithful to Lily. He became an insider spy against the most dangerous criminal of all time, facing untold dangers and terrors, protecting far more than Harry through his courage. Dumbledore challenged Snape regarding all his continuous and unstinting sacrifice being for the love of Lily. His entire life had been sacrificed out of his love. Was Snape still in love with Lily. Snape said, “Always.” 

I wonder what JK Rowling was thinking when she developed this character. I wonder if she was creating an image of a sacrificial love that this planet needs, we all need. I think of the word, “always.” For Snape it meant every moment, of every day, to the end of his life, and the last words he spoke. He was consumed. It truly challenges me as to how superficial I am. I wonder if I could be as sacrificial for another. I don’t think I have ever suffered to that extreme, for anyone. It is an amazing example to consider. 

There are two parts of this image, loving like that and being loved like that, through everything, thick and thin, highs and lows, danger and safety, going well or going terribly, “always.” I may never grow to a point that I can love like that, but I am learning to realize that I am loved like that.

The New Testament tells us that Jesus says “always” regarding His love for each of us. He has gone through far more than we could understand or imagine to say that to us. He has often done it when we are fighting Him and failing to understant His motivation. Harry blamed Snape for many of his troubles. We often blame Jesus when we don’t understand what is happening, or, more devastatingly, why. 

Snape is not a “Jesus” character. The stories share a natural and fictional example how much someone can suffer for the love of another. We have other real examples on our world of people who have endured amazing things for the love of others. The greatest example of all examples is Jesus, and He is not fiction. He loves each of us “Always.” The Bible tells us from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation that God’s plan has never altered or veered from the love He has chosen to give us. We are loved, completely, “Always.”

Jokes, cartoons, and various human lampoons are filled with the traveling anecdote of people saying, “Are we there yet.” It is obvious that if we were there, we would not have to ask the question. People are impatient. I am a people. I am impatient. I love the idea of going somewhere, but I want to be there and not on the way. Quite frankly, the Star Trek ability to beam you somewhere in seconds is absolutely appealing to me. I think I would jump on the transporter, even though my molecules might be scattered through space, just to get somewhere instantly.

We, as Christians, live our lives in the gap between what we were (and were glad to leave) and where God is taking us (a place we really want to go). We go through every state possible during the journey while God is driving us to where He wants us to go. Consider all of your experiences in a car on a long journey and use them as metaphors for your journey with Christ: freaking out if you don’t get to a rest area in the next 20 seconds, fighting with siblings, carrying on a rousing debate, playing games like I spy, being amazed by the scenery, filled with anxiety or exuberance or anything in between regarding where are you are going and/or what you are doing, being hungry or thirsty, spilling food or anything else all over you, being hot or cold or comfortable or uncomfortable, enjoying the people on the journey with you, being frustrated and angry at the people on the journey with  you, being car sick, enjoying extra naps and rest, and so much more.

All those traveling experiences are transitory and express the fullness of human experience. They will all pass as the scenery around the car will pass. The only thing that doesn’t pass is that the Lord is taking us somewhere. We are all safe in His transportation. We can have absolute confidence that He will get us there. 

We may forget the car we are in and the driver because we become so preoccupied with what is going on in the back seat. Each moment occurs in the presence of Jesus, and we can intentionally share them with Him. We can learn to see Him in all of the experiences we have along the way, whether we are happy, mad, sad, or glad. He is in the car with us, working to get us to our destination. His process for our growth and development incorporates every state within which we might ever find ourselves, good or bad. He transforms all, good, bad, and indifferent. 

No, we aren’t there yet, but thank the Lord, we are on the way. The transformer of our lives is in the driver’s seat, even when we think we have taken over during times of sad behavior on our part. He is using every moment to teach us how to live with those on the journey with us. He is using every circumstance to deepen our knowledge of Him and His love and plan for us. He is a father like no other, perfect in all His ways. It is not 2022 which will meet the needs of any. Our needs are met by the Father in Heaven, through His Holy Spirit, who is transporting us through all times, events, and experiences to His plan for our lives, the location we all want to go. We are on the way. We will know when we get there.

I am currently undergoing a fast the church has called for 21 days.  (Undergoing is how I speak of remodeling the house. It is so full of wreckage while everything is being upgraded, and so joyful when the upgrade is complete, even though you are exhausted.) A fast is a time of inviting the Lord into all the rooms, nooks and crannies you’ believe you have hidden in the dark from the Lord.  For me it’s all about discipline colliding with indulgence. Jesus has the discipline, and I have the indulgence. However, a fast often ends up with me going in to a room I believe I kept dark only to find that the Lord has been in there with the lights on.

I think of  life and humanity very much like addiction. Life is a constant war with the human reality of failed virtue. I’ve been addicted to alcohol and tobacco and other things. There are a lot of little things I’ve tripped over too. Stopping those things is where discipline and indulgence collide. It is where Jesus meets my worst self.

Weakness, frailty, indulgence, seem irresistible. They intimidate to the extent that even the consideration of change is intimidating and painful, even without any movement toward change. Any effort to change feels doomed from the start. The craving inside to give in seems larger than any strength, mental, emotional, or physical I have available to stand firm. The mind and emotions attach themselves to the addiction/failing to the point of justifying my entire life in the direction of my weakness. Failings become repetitive and habitual.

“Poor me” is a constant mental and emotional refrain, which hides behind denial of the facts. Looking at the pain and sorrow caused by the world and people around me seem overwhelming and beyond fighting. I often cannot comprehend the way through or imagine having the strength to walk through it, even though I daydreamed the victory often. I find myself more committed to failure than success.

You can’t say that the Lord does not have compassion, but you can say that he has no respect and no regard for these thoughts and feelings of failure. They are not His thoughts and feelings, and He does not want them to be ours. He is not opposed to stepping in with one of the most frightening words in my vocabulary, “Accountability.”

Accountability is a stunner. It is the terrifying scrape of the key that enters the lock that opens the gate to my freedom. Bit by painful bit, accountability began to tear down the room I had built to accommodate alcoholism. It was no one else’s fault, but my choice. I had no reason for self-pity, but open ended opportunity for joy. It was not about my strength, but about the Lord’s. Learning to trust Him where I could not walk alone was the order of the day. The room was destroyed. Alcoholism had no place to stay. It left. And so the Lord has worked on other addictions, shortcomings, and failings in my life. I expect his efforts to continue as long as I live, and I am grateful. When I think I am on the verge of giving in to failure, I find myself walking over the bridge He has created in my life to His success. I am surprised by joy and His ability in my life.

The greatest comfort in my life is that the Lord has faithfully promised not to leave me, forsake me, or give up on me. I know that I’m in life over my head, beyond my depth. I know the Lord provides the possible in the impossible. I have seen Him do it over and over again.  I am grateful.