“For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37).
It strikes me on Christmas Eve that the verse I’ve quoted so many times is found in the Bible in the context of two women God touched to make the impossible possible.
Neither of the two women should have been able to conceive a child. It was impossible.
Mary was a virgin.
Elizabeth was barren.
Yet, God had a different idea.
Mary was approached by an angel who told her she would be overpowered by the Holy Spirit and conceive a child. After asking “How can this be?” and hearing God’s answer, she agreed with the promise: “May it be unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
An angel told Zechariah that his wife, Elizabeth, would have a child; in his doubting response, he described his wife as “stricken in years.” The disagreement he spoke out of his mouth opposing God’s message caused the angel to close Zechariah’s mouth so he would not speak again until the child was born.
What is it you long to give birth to that seems impossible today?
Being a woman, I resonate with this powerful account because when a woman says yes to conceiving a child, it requires more than lip service. It requires that she incubate a seed of life within her body. The seed of new life is within a woman for about nine months. The new life is carried, changing the shape of a woman’s body, felt when the kicking starts, nourished with nutrients from her own physicality to grow the child until the day of birth.
In due season, the woman goes through a birthing process that takes over her body as the new life comes forth.
Giving birth to the dreams of a life require a similar yielding of all that we are and all that we have:
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Our lips must say yes.
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Our bodies have to cooperate with the favor of new life in the physical and do the work of bringing forth a dream, carrying a dream to fulfillment.
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Our mind and spirit are required to agree with the new life, bringing new birth into reality through prayer, pondering, contemplating, pushing past fear, and celebrating as new life is born.
These beautiful accounts illustrate what occurs when God makes the impossible possible.
The lessons of birth changing the impossible to the possible are the same for a man or a woman.
I had not noticed the context of the Luke 1:37 before this Christmas season.
I see now it’s no small thing that Luke included this life-giving verse in the context of two women whose bodies hosted new life, which should have been impossible.
Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist, of whom Jesus said, “mong those who are born of women, there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11).
Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Savior of the world.
What impossibility do you see today that God would make possible?
Will you speak in agreement with God’s promises with your own lips, cooperate in the physical toil and work to grow your dream, think thoughts and pray prayers that will usher forth your now possible dreams according to the work of God and the Holy Spirit within you?
“For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37).
