Pastor’s Corner: “No Dead Ends”
Romans 4:17 (NLT) – “Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing”
How do you know when you’re at a dead end? You know it when things get out of your control and you can’t do anything about it. When you’re seemingly stuck in a dead end and waiting for a way out, you need to remember what God can do. The situation may be out of your control, but it’s not out of God’s control. When you face a dead end, don’t focus on what you can’t do. Focus instead on what God can do.
We can face all kinds of situations in life that the world would define as a dead end. These are circumstances that appear like there is no way out. These can include dead-end words in life, including “cancer,” “divorce,” “bankruptcy,” “infertility,” and “unemployment.”
Romans 4:17b says, “Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing” (NLT). Here are two things God does that you can’t do: He can give life to the dead, and he can create something out of nothing. If God can give life to a dead man, he can give life to a dead career. He can bring life to that dead marriage. He can bring life to that dead dream. He can bring life to that financial dead end. Isaiah 43:19 (NIV) – 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. God specializes in making a way where there seems to be no way. God specializes in dead ends.
It wasn’t just positive thinking that helped Abraham. Positive thinking works fine in situations you can control. But positive thinking is not faith. They are two very different things. In situations that are out of our control, positive thinking is worthless. It’s just wishful thinking. It doesn’t change the situation. When you face things that are out of your control, you need something more than a positive mental attitude. You need faith in God, because He can control it when you can’t. Most of life is beyond your control, so you need faith far more than you need positive thinking.
Sometimes it seems in life like God leads us to dead ends. We do not understand why God would lead us to this circumstance or that situation. The Hebrews felt the same way when God led them out of Egypt and slavery right to a dead end (The Red Sea). They cried, why did God brings us out of Egypt and slavery to die out here in the desert? He’s working on our behalf even when we can’t see it all. He has a plan and purpose in whatever we walk through. He can cut a clear pathway through anything. And in seemingly hopeless situations where we can’t see any way out, God’s power has the opportunity to shine the greatest. It’s in those times when we come to the end of ourselves, where we know we can’t depend on our own abilities, on anything we have, or anyone we know, but instead are reminded that we are totally and completely reliant on Him – it’s those times that are the most powerful of all.
Jesus says in Luke 18:27, “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (NIV). God specializes in the impossible. It’s called a miracle, and he can do it in your life! He is ready to turn your dead end into deliverance.
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton