Happiness

One of the blessings of teaching writing is that I get to think about all kinds of topics--based on whatever the class is reading.

One semester I got to research the Enron debacle and greed.  Another semester we studied African-American rhetoric, slavery, and King.  Another semester we watched Food, Inc., and I became obsessed with eating naturally healthy foods and avoiding meat from CAFOs.  

I don't always get sucked in by the arguments we teach.  Sometimes I just think about things that I probably wouldn't have thought about otherwise.  

Right now we're reading about happiness.  Specifically, we are looking at research on what makes people happy.  

Apparently our American culture is obsessed with happiness, something that really isn't all that central if you don't have enough to eat on a daily basis or you live in a war zone.  And the irony is that studies show our country isn't any happier in 2011 than it was in the 1970s, when happiness research began.  

But that doesn't stop us from chasing after an increase in the happiness scale.  

First of all, a definition of happiness.  Oddly enough, the three articles we read for class have no criteria for measuring happiness other than what Daniel Bok describes as "subjective well-being."  In other words, if you think you're happy, you're happy. The scale makes sense.  Who, besides you, can tell you how happy you are?  

So I asked my students what makes them happy, and they came up with all kinds of things.  Parties.  New cars.  Hanging out with their friends.  Getting new clothes.  Acquiring a new cell phone or iPad.  

And in the introductory essays they wrote on the first day of class, in which I asked they why they decided to go to college, most of them told me they wanted to get a good education so they could get a good job so they could have a good life so they could be happy.  

But all of them acknowledged that parties and cars and hanging out with friends don't make them happy permanently.  Clothes get old.  Technology becomes obsolete.  

And not everyone graduating from college gets that amazing job.  Additionally, research consistently shows that once people make enough money to take care of basic needs, having more money doesn't make them happier.  

And so what makes us happy?  

A simplistic answer for Christians might be "knowing Jesus makes me happy," but I know Jesus and I'm not always jumping up and down.  And even if jumping up and down does not constitute subjective well-being for me, which it does not, I'm not always 10/10 on the happiness scale.  

Honestly, I'm hardly ever 10/10 on the happiness scale.  I'm not sure what that would look like.  

Moreover, I know a lot of Christians who aren't happy all the time, and quite a few that don't actually ever seem like they're happy.  

Researchers suggest that perhaps DNA or temperament plays a significant role in how we rate our own happiness.  You can't change that.  

So I'm left wondering if happiness, or subjective well-being, even ought to be a life objective, or if it is one of those serendipitous emotions we feel sometimes, but not always.  

At the same time, there's something to be said for being content with life and looking forward to the future.  And that makes me think of Paul in the book of Philippians.  

At the end of his letter, he thanks the people of Philippi for the monetary gift they gave him, and then he tells them, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances [in my life].  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."  (Philippians 4:11-12)

That's a pretty awesome secret.  So often we attach happiness to circumstances.  We say, "I will be happy when [fill in the blank]."

I will be happy when I finish my thesis.
I will be happy when I find a writing job.
I will be happy when I go on vacation.

I will be happy when I get a new laptop.
I will be happy when I get married.
I will be happy when I have children.
I will be happy when . . .

And the thing is, Paul is saying that happiness, or contentedness, or subjective well-being, is not dependent on circumstances.

And here is Paul's secret:

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

In redefining happiness, in separating his subjective well-being from his circumstances, Paul changes his expectations.  He puts his trust in God.  He prays about everything and worries about nothing.

He stops saying, "I will be happy when ____________" and rejoices in God's plan for him today.

And quite honestly this doesn't make a lot of sense logically.  It only makes sense if you absolutely believe God loves you and cares for you and wants to work through you in everything.  It only makes sense if you have hope in the future, if you keep in mind "the joy set before you."

Here I'm referencing Hebrews 12:2.  In this passage, the writer of Hebrews admonishes his readers to run the race set before them, no matter how hard it is, to remember those who have gone before, to keep their eyes on Jesus, who suffered the cross because of the joy of sharing in fellowship with all of them.  That's all of us.  

Certainty of happiness in the future, of joy in the future, equals strength to endure whatever happens today, and contentedness with whatever happens today, and even happiness or joy today.

But that certainly only comes through God's strength.

Again, none of this makes logical sense.  Unless you believe God loves you and loves mankind and wants to have fellowship with you.  Unless you believe that walking through difficulty or monotony will bring you into that fellowship.

And so I return to this idea of happiness.  Should this be a primary goal in our lives?  Should we keep chasing after the things that make us happy, for the sake of happiness?  Remember, research and experience demonstrate that most things that make us happy don't make us happy for very long.

For the record, I don't think Paul was chasing happiness.  I think he discovered contentment when he chased after God.  

Learning to Move Through an Existential Crisis

Confession time.  I'm not exactly sure what an existential crisis is.  But I think I'm having one.

Who am I? What am I doing? What do I next?

What if it doesn't work?
What if I can't find work?

See, the way I'm using the word "existential" is related to my existence and not to "existentialism," which thoroughly confused me when I was 17 and which I never studied after that.

I suppose we all go through these crises as we go through life.  I also suppose it's part of experiencing change,  whether we chose the changes or the changes choose us.

Nothing ever stays the same, and although some people may journey through life without freaking out, I am not one of those people.  I maintain that most of us face these existential crises periodically, but we just navigate them a little differently.  (Or a lot differently.)

At any rate, I chose the changes I'm experiencing right now.  I chose to redirect my life.  I chose to go after writing and teaching and taking risks.  And I'm not second guessing my choices--I would make them again--I just don't know what to do next.  I don't know how to move forward.

Moving forward.  We move forward at many times in our lives:

• After finishing school.
• After getting laid off.  Or fired.
• After losing a friend or a family member to death.  
• After a divorce.
• After surgery.
• After starting a family.

We choose to move forward when we

• Get married.
• Start a family.
• Go after a new job.
• Return to school.
• Decide a major.  
• Apply for jobs.

From my perspective, some people seem to move forward effortlessly, boldly, without fear.  I do not.  Most people do not.  The risks of change, of moving, can seem monumental.  But nothing ever stays the same, and even if we do not choose to move, the world will nudge--or push--us into moving eventually.

And so we must learn to move.  To take risks.  To try new things.  Things that take a lot of work.  That put us in new situations.  That that challenge us.  And we have to persevere.  Keep going.  Keep moving.  

At the same time, we must build and maintain structures of stability in our lives.  Friends that move alongside us.  They don't necessarily go with us, but they encourage us in our journeys, and we encourage them in theirs.  

And we look straight ahead to Jesus, the author and completer of our faith.  We all always be moving, but he never changes.  

I think I haven't done so well on building and maintaining structures of stability recently, and now I'm trying to go back and rebuild them.  I got so focused on the moving and the finishing that I forgot where I was going and how to get there.  Hence, my existential crisis.  

And honestly, although this blog is about my existential crisis and my inability to move and my disappointment at waking up and figuring out that I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing or where I'm headed and I feel all alone, I know I'm not the only one.

I know someone reading this is living through an existential crisis right now.  Probably not for the same reasons, but there are a lot of reasons to have an existential crisis.  I have one every time I reinvent myself.  And I suppose the point is, and I really am trying to make a point out of my angst, that this is normal and we need to keep going, keep moving, keep looking to the future.  And keep looking to Jesus, who gives us strength to keep moving.  And who comforts us in our angst.  And find people to journey with us along the way.

And I suppose finding those people is a struggle in and of itself.  Maybe I should write about that.

Panicked.

Last January I went to an English department forum on getting jobs in community colleges.  A professor from Mesa College suggested getting a certificate to expand the number of classes we could teach.  For example, reading or English as a Second Language.  Great career move.

I visited an ESL class and loved the students.  I filled out an application for an internship--and then I crossed my fingers.  Well, I got the internship and now I need to take a few classes to get the certificate.  

The internship and the classes add up to a lot of hours, and that could leave me unable to teach writing, my first love.  And that's assuming I could find a class or two to teach anyways.  

So great career move, but I don't know if my heart's in it.  

Last night I went to an informal gathering of interns and mentors and I gravitated toward the English teachers. Because that's what I love.  I totally love English.  

I've never made what's considered good career moves.  I've never even made career moves in the past.  I just kind of went along with the flow.  

Ultimately, this can help my career teaching English as well because I'll make great contacts.  And it will help my ability to teach ESL students in the regular classroom, one of my original goals.  

But this next year will be incredibly hard.  Sigh.  Sometimes I don't like being an adult. 

Acknowledgments

I like writing in the blogging box.  It makes me happy. And I don't know why, but I think it's easier to write in the box than to write on a blank Word screen.  That's why I'm writing my thesis acknowledgments here.

My thesis is done, and all I have left is to write an acknowledgment page.  I've sat in front of my computer for the last thirty minutes trying to adequately recognize the many individuals who have helped me in my pursuit of a Master's Degree.  Honestly, I've been thinking about this page for nearly a year, trying to figure out how to thank those who have influenced my love of words and who have challenged me to seek answers to my many questions.

The problem is that I don't know where to start or how to fit this on a single page.  It's probably not possible to thank everyone, and I hesitate to start naming names for fear that I will leave someone out.  I probably don't need to worry.  It's not like they'll all read this page anyway.

I want to begin by thanking my mom and dad for encouraging my natural love for language and learning.  Every Saturday, when I was little, my dad gave me fifty cents, and we went to the book store and I bought a new book.  I don't know what other kids did with their allowance, but I wanted books.  My dad seemed to like that.  I never went anywhere without a book, and my dad seemed to like that too.  My dad's gone now, but I know he would be incredibly proud of his little girl who has grown up to become a teacher and a writer and an academic.

I have to thank Pastor Mike at Newbreak Church for challenging me to read the Bible and figure out what it says.  I grew up in a Christian home and memorized countless Scriptures, but I never really spent much time mulling over the meaning of passages or considering what the writers were trying to do.  I didn't know it at the time, but this was my first attempt at rhetorical analysis, and I loved it.  Not only did Mike whet my appetite for reading and studying books of the Bible, he allowed me to participate on the sermon team.  Together, we spent many hours in his office studying passages, looking at commentaries, and developing sermon outlines.  Mike has an amazing knack for knowing how to communicate persuasively, and I learned a great deal from watching him.  Working as his assistant renewed my desire to hone my own communication skills.

Despite my growing passion for rhetorical studies, I entered school cautiously.  I wasn't sure I could succeed at the graduate level, but the professors in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies department at San Diego State are amazing.  In particular, I want to thank Dr. McClish, who has challenged me to write precisely, most specifically in this thesis.  He graciously spent time answering questions and challenging me to think about new concepts.  Dr. McClish acts as a model for the type of teacher I desire to be.   I also want to thank Dr. Robinett for her cheerful smile and encouraging words.  Running into her in the hallways always brightens my day.  And I must thank her for pushing me into the Rhetoric, Literacy, and Technology class (RWS 511) taught by Dr. Werry.  Honestly, that class changed my understanding about writing and technology and language.  I never would have taken that class if she had not gently nudged me into it, and if I hadn't taken that class, I never would have discovered this project.  Thank you!

I can't thank Dr. Werry enough for introducing me to new media studies.  I love all aspects of rhetoric, but this one challenges my imagination in unique ways.  The class provided a broad overview on the topic of new media literacy studies, and Dr. Werry offered additional and extensive help as I began studying the rhetoric of Internet churches.  He pointed me in all the right directions and graciously challenged me to narrow my focus multiple times.  He empathized with my desire for perfection and consistently reminded me to give myself grace.  Over the course of the last year-and-a-half, he has spent many office hours listening to me talk about my research, discussing it with me, and asking questions prompting new lines of research.  I cannot thank him enough for his academic mentoring, related to this thesis as well as to pedagogy.

One of my greatest challenges is that I am insecure and doubt my abilities.  Certainly my professors were helpful in overcoming my timidity, but without my friends and family, I don't know that I ever would have returned to school.  I have been blessed with a great number of men and women in my life who pray for me, laugh with me, and lovingly prod me to finish.  Special thanks to Rodney and Beth for dinners with pinochle and bottles of red wine, to Dan and Denise for accepting me exactly as I am and making me laugh about it, to Amanda who doesn't mind telling me what to do, to Portia has prayed and fasted for this project, to Nancy who amuses me with Facebook anecdotes while I am writing, and to Cheryl, who loves unconditionally.  You remind me that there is more to life than school, and I am especially grateful for that.

I know there are more people I should thank--all the women in the Life Group that just ended and the Life Group before that and some former coworkers and the list goes on and on.  I cannot list all your names so I will thank you in person as I see you.

Additional thanks to Michelle Barbeau, Bridget Malaney, and Laura Hofreiter, who are also in the final stages of finishing their theses in the RWS department.  Together, we have commiserated about the process of thesis writing and graduate studies and the challenge of teaching and finishing school.  It's been good to know I'm not in this alone.

And finally, I must thank my family.  Sometimes I am overwhelmed by how blessed I am to have you in my life.  Thank you for encouraging me to keep going.  Thank you for challenging me to pursue goals set aside many years ago.  Thank you for doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, taking me out to dinner, doing countless other things I didn't have the energy to do, and putting up with incoherent monologues about Aristotle, Walter Ong, and computer-mediated communication.

I am grateful for all the people God has placed in my life.  No accomplishment is every achieved independently.  I could not have finished this project on my own.  

The End is Near (The Thesis Version)

No, I am not writing about the second coming. I have done that before, but this time my purpose in writing is not nearly as lofty.  

Forgive me.  I am about to embark on a fairly narcissistic reflection of the last year.  And after that, I think I will be done whining about my thesis.  

I have turned in what may be the last version of my research on Internet churches.  And now I'm waiting. Waiting to hear if I'm done.  Waiting to hear if I can get a signature from the department chair.  Waiting.  

Ironically, as I tagged the printed copy for review, I penciled in two slight (but not insignificant) changes.  

Both my department readers said the same thing to me when I met with them last week: Writing a master's thesis is more about the learning process than anything else.  Their remarks have prompted me to reflect on the process of writing this thesis and the things I have learned.  

On writing and the writing process.

• I use the same words over and over and over again.  This is not the same as deliberate repetition, which can be a rhetorical strategy.  No.  This is laziness.  For example, in one paragraph I used the word "claims" three different times.  The same goes for "notes" and "observes."  I like the word "indeed" as a transition.  I had to go through the thesis with the search category, highlight the guilty words with different colors and then go through the printed text looking for too many of the same color on the same page.  As a result, I have developed a long list of optional words.  This may be very useful in the future.  Like when I start writing my book.  
• I'm only partly joking about that last part.  I've always wished I could write a book, but frankly, the length of a book scares me.  I have writing ADD.  And I tend to walk away from things that get difficult.  Writing two-to-three page academic reflections and lengthy blogs on any topic are significantly easier than 100-page tomes.  I can't even imagine what it would be like to write a dissertation.  Or a book.  Carrying ideas through from beginning to end is more difficult than I ever imagined.  I critique other people's writing when they don't do this well.  And now I find myself guilty of the same writing weakness.  I suppose I might get better at this if I had more practice.
• Another way to avoid this is to examine other people's writing to figure out how they avoid this weakness and others.  In fact, I've started doing this to learn more about the writing process in general.  How do authors introduce their arguments?  How do they incorporate multiple ideas?  How do they use other people's research?  And then extend it?  How do they end their articles?  I've definitely learned more about academic writing in this thesis process than I ever did in the papers I wrote for my graduate classes.  
• I absolutely love research.  I want to know more about everything.  I want to continue this process forever and ever and ever.  However, at some point I just have to pick a direction and go with it.  In addition, I have to figure out what I want to say and say it.  I can't just ramble forever, which is my tendency.  Rambling only works for writers like Donald Miller. 

On my own writing process.  And about myself.

• I love to write.  More than that, I need to write.  But writing takes a great deal out of me.  I haven't written in this blog because it just takes a lot of time.  And I needed to focus on finishing.  
• I don't finish well.  I know this is true with cleaning and organizing.  I will do an impeccable job until right at the end, and then I walk away.  The closer I got to finishing this thesis, the more panicked I got, and the more I just wanted to quit.  I doubted that I would ever be done.  
• I am easily distracted.  More than that, I crave distractions.  When I'm working on long-term projects, I prefer to do little tasks that I can finish quickly.  Or that make me smile.  I also like projects with visible or edible results.  Sometimes distractions help me focus.  And sometimes they keep me from focusing.  I think I need to learn to discern the difference. 
• I also need to exercise self-discipline.  I need to make myself keep going when I want to walk away. And when the task of explaining myself seems too daunting, I need to create strategies that help me keep moving forward.  This summer, my tutoring job, that got me on campus before 8:00 in the morning forced me to create a writing schedule.  I won't always have that kind of forced discipline, which means I need to invent structures in my life that allow me to set goals and see them through.  
• I need deadlines.  Knowing that I didn't have any more schedule extensions kept me in the office writing every single day.  I don't know how to create artificial deadlines for writing, but apparently I need to do that.  
• Oh yes.  My friends are amazing.  I had a handful of women in my life that lovingly harassed me so that I wouldn't procrastinate.  I can't say enough about these women.  (It's all good.)  Thank you.  

Something else I learned about myself:

• Sometimes I get so focused on what I'm doing that I forget to pay attention to friends and family.  Or God.  Oh, I never forget.  But I don't nourish those relationships.  They have all given me grace and love and have put up with my self-focused attitudes.  In the future, I want to learn to balance life and goals and achievement. I haven't learned that in 51 years.  But I think I might be a little better than I used to be so I am hopeful.  

Ideally I will take what I learned and use it in the future.  We shall see.  

Circle of Blessings

Last night we drove up to Pasadena to celebrate Ashley's graduation from high school.  The trip up to Pasadena took more than two hours.  We got home at exactly 12:34 a.m. Honestly, we wouldn't do this for just anyone.  Most of the time we're fast asleep by 9:45.  We wake up promptly at 5:46 every single morning.  Including today.

Ashley is an amazing young woman who graduated at the top of her class.  She and Caitlin competed together in debate last year.  During her senior year of high school, Ashley competed for Pasadena Community College this spring and won the national championship.  She will attend Columbia University in the fall.  More than one Ivy League school accepted her, but Columbia offered her a scholarship and so she chose to go to New York.

But none of those accomplishments would make me want to drive to Pasadena.

Caitlin met Ashley at Debate Camp up in Santa Clara.  This was Cait's second year to go to camp, but that year she had decided to try Lincoln-Douglass debate (LD) instead of Team Policy.  Because LD  debaters compete without partners, Caitlin traveled to Santa Clara alone.  She knew people at the camp, but they all competed in the team division.  The classes met separately and meal times didn't coincide.  Caitlin felt lost and alone

I called Caitlin at the end of the first day, and she wanted to hop on a plane and come home.  We prayed over the phone and I wondered what I was thinking to send Caitlin all the way up to the Bay Area by herself. Because she knew no one in LD, she had no one to go to restaurants with.  She ate alone.  She almost missed the shuttle from the hotel to the college.

Enter Ashley.  And the entire Mendez family.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but Ashley and Caitlin started talking.  And after that the Mendez family gave Cait rides to the college.  They took her to dinner.  Caitlin had a friend.  And a new family.

They stayed in touch after debate camp and when Caitlin went to the National Tournament in South Carolina the next year, Ashley texted encouraging messages to her every single day.  It had been a tough year with her team.  A team member had accused her of treating an opponent in an ungodly manner, and instead of discussing it with her privately, the coach brought up the topic with the whole club.  He didn't say her name, but nearly every debater knew exactly who he was talking about.  Caitlin strives to be kind to everyone, and the incident completely eroded her confidence.  By the end of the season, when she was at the National Tournament, Caitlin felt like her own team had abandoned her.  Ashley's kind words strengthened her throughout the week.  I had never met Ashley at the time, but I loved her.

That summer, Caitlin considered dropping out of debate.  The whole club thing had nearly destroyed her.

And then Ashley invited Caitlin to join her club.  Channel Islands.

She only went to one club meeting in Ventura, but Ashley arranged to have the coach come to her house near Pasadena.  Twice.  At tournaments, Caitlin spent time with her new team.  They welcomed her and loved her.  It was the best season ever.  Not just because she won a lot, but because she had friends.   And for the first time ever, Caitlin felt like she was actually good at debate.  She conquered a lot of fears that year, and at the end of the season, she felt like maybe, just maybe, she might be a little bit smart.

Duane and I had a great time with all the parents from Channel Islands.  But especially the Mendez family.  They became unique and amazing friends.  We still stay in touch, but not as much as I would like.

And that's a great story.  Certainly Ashley deserves this tribute because of her kindness to my daughter.  However, there's another part of this story that I nearly forgot.  Until last night.

Five or six years ago, my older daughter Kirsten traveled up to Pasadena to meet Lina, a friend's fiancée.   Kirsten and Lina hit it off immediately, and then two weeks after they met, Lina's dad died suddenly of a heart attack.  Kirsten went up to the funeral and visited frequently after that.  Kirsten's friend and Lina ended up breaking off their engagement, but Kirsten and Lina continued to spend as much time as possible together.  And that meant becoming part of Lina's family.

Ide, Lina's mom, the principal of a Christian home school organization, asked Kirsten if she would teach a debate class, and because Kirsten loved Ide, and because she loves teaching debate, she conducted a debate seminar.

And that's when Ashley and the Mendez family got interested in debate.  And that's what took them up to Santa Clara where they blessed our family enormously.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

And this is the circle of blessings.  Kirsten blesses Ide and a group of students she doesn't even know.  And one of those students turns around and blesses Caitlin.

It's beautiful, really.   

Caitlin's senior year would have been so very different if Kirsten had decided she didn't have time for trips to Pasadena or teaching kids debate.  Of course Kirsten had no way of knowing how this would change her sister's life.

We serve.  We love.  We give ourselves away.  Not for what we'll get back, but because of love.  

We never know how it will turn out.

This time we get to see the circle.  It still makes me smile when I think about it.  We invested time and money in helping Kirsten with debate, and then we released her to do whatever she wanted with her skills.  She turned them into a way to bless others.  And then the blessing came back to us.  

There are other circles I can't even begin to understand.  The many, many people who poured into her life.  And into their lives.  And so on.  

You just never know.  

But God does.

Impossible.

I like to think of myself as an analytical problem solver.  Even better, I am a strategic solution finder.

What goals do we have?  What are the best ways to attain those goals?  What problems might we encounter?  How can we minimize those problems?  How can we maximize the benefits to reach the goal?

I even find solutions for God, not that he's asking me for advice.  He seems to like doing his own thing.

This drives people like me crazy.  By people like me, I mean people who crave logic and reason.  Who like to know why.  Who like to systematize the world.  And to be honest, part of my strategic solution finding is a craving for structure and order in the world.  Apparently people like me have a little problem with control.

Frequently I problem solve first and then start praying after nothing has worked and nothing has changed.  That leaves me feeling like I am asking God to do the impossible.  I mean, I already have tried to figure out a solution, and I couldn't.  Therefore, there can't possibly be a solution.  (Apparently I'm also a little stuck on myself and my ability to strategically approach situations.)

Right now my prayer list includes a lot of impossible requests.  And by impossible, I mean things that are completely out of my control.  No logical course of action can change anything, as far as I can see, and so I must completely depend on God to do what I can't do.

I pray for my son.  I want depression and anxiety to release him the chains they have wrapped around his mind.  I want him to experience God's presence and peace.  I want him to open his heart to God's love.  I want him to see that he's funny and smart and that people will like him if he gives them a chance.  I can't do that for him.  Counseling could not do that for him.  Only God can.

I pray for healing for friends with cancer and other still unidentified illnesses.  I can't heal them.  Doctors can only do so much.  God can do more.

I pray for marriages to thrive, for forgiveness and love to reign.  I can't fix my friends' lives.  Sometimes they can't fix their lives.  But God can.

I pray for spiritual healing for men and women whose hearts break for any number of reasons.  I know a lot of people.  There are a lot of people hurting.

I pray for the little church in Santee to grow.  Certainly there are things we can do. We can reach out to the community.  We can welcome people as they come in the door and invite them into our live, but we can't make people stay.  We can ask God to fill us with love for each other.  We can pray for each other.  But we can't transform lives or heal past hurts.  Only God causes church growth.  And by growth, I mean more than numbers.  I mean lives transformed by the power of God.

Sometimes, as I pray, I just think--all this is impossible.

Certainly some things are physically impossible.  For example, cancer doesn't just disappear.   Unless a miracle happens.

As for the other things I pray for, answers to these prayers don't go against the physical laws of nature.  On the other hand, they just don't happen very often.

And so I'm asking God to step in and do the impossible.  Sometimes I get tired of praying these prayers, because I don't always see God answering my prayers.  However, I do believe God answers prayers and so I keep praying.

Yesterday morning, I got very discouraged, and as I prayed, I thought of that verse where someone says, "Nothing is impossible for God."

I thought back through all my Bible stories and asked myself, "Who says that?"  And I turned to Luke 1, the story of Mary and the angel who announced she would get pregnant and give birth to a son, the son of God.

And Mary asks, "But how can that happen?  I'm a virgin and virgins don't get pregnant.  This is impossible?"

The angel responds in three ways.

First, he tells her how this will happen.  "Okay, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of God will overshadow you so that your baby will be the Son of God."  I'm pretty sure this explanation made about as much sense to Mary as it does to any of us.

Next, the angel offers tangible evidence that God can do anything.  "Oh, and by the way if you think this sounds implausible, your cousin Elizabeth, the one everybody thought couldn't have kids, the one who's too old to have kids, she's pregnant."  So crazy, impossible things actually do happen.

And finally he ties it all together.  "Nothing is impossible with God."

God can do anything.  And when he does the impossible, the things we can't possibly do, he gets the credit.  He gets the glory.  We worship him and know he's not just a really cool guy.  He's GOD.

Think about it.  If Elizabeth had gotten pregnant when she was 25, no one would have said, "Wow! God is amazing."  No. Women get pregnant every day.  But when a woman beyond childbearing ages gets pregnant, especially one who has never had a baby, people praise God and know that God does the impossible.

Mary tells the angel, "Okay.  I'm God's servant.  I'll play whatever role God wants me to play."  I don't need to understand everything, but I'm on board.  God can do the impossible.  He can do it through me.

Now, I know there are some differences between this story and the story I'm telling about the impossible.  For instance, the angel approached Mary.  She didn't go to him and suggest that God do the impossible.  Quite honestly, this impossibility was so impossible that she wouldn't have even thought to ask God to do this.

This story presents a theological principle.  God can do anything.

Other passages instruct us to ask.
Luke 11:9 Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for.
James 4:2  You don't have what you want because you don't ask for it.
Philippians 4:6  Tell God what you need, and thank him for he's already done.

More than that, we see examples of people asking God to intervene.  Abraham asks God to intervene and save lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The angels rescue Lot and his family.  Hannah begs God for a baby.  God gives her Samuel.  When Peter goes to prison, the church prays for his release.  And he gets released.

And so I'm praying.  I'm asking God for the impossible.

Oh, I'll keep asking God for wisdom in discerning the role I should play in people's lives.  And I'll keep asking him for wisdom in creating new strategies, new ways to proceed.  Creating strategies isn't a bad thing.

But mostly I want to see God's power.  I want to see him do the impossible.  I want to see him do the things I can't possibly do.