The Possible Apples! … Hello Hump Day readers. I just finished a Podcast about trust and possibilities. It was interesting because there were pastors, teachers, Bible scholars, Professors, 2 Physicians, and one young boy. Sounds crazy, but a pastor friend of mine told me to watch it so I took her recommendation and she was spot-on.

“A lot of the banter back and forth was about trust and thinking that there was nothing God couldn’t do. The back-and-forth was interesting: some say yes, others say no, and some weren’t sure. After they expressed their feelings and were about to end the session, the young boy stood up and said loudly: “Can I tell you all my story?” There was a quiet moment while folks looked back and forth with each other trying to say a ‘yes-or-no’. It was obvious to the boy that they couldn’t make up their minds so he did it for them saying:

“My name is James and I am 9-years old. But I want to tell you something that you should know but you are arguing about it. So, listen up please. Last year I was on an airplane to visit my grandparents. I was so excited to go on a plane, I had never been on one before. There was a nice man next to me. We shared our names and he said, “do you know the Apostle James?” He asked that because he saw me reading my bible—it was a children’s Bible. I told him that I knew James was in the bible but I didn’t know much about him but I was named by him and my dad was, too. I asked the man if he was a pastor, and he said “close, I am a seminary professor and I help teach those who want to be a pastor.” I thought that was pretty cool. Then, he asked me this question, “James, if you can tell me something God can do, I’ll give you a shiny apple.” I looked up at him I and thought to myself, this guy doesn’t know much about God because in my bible God can do anything. The man looked at me and started to say something and I just blurted out “Sir, if you can tell me something God can’t do, I’ll give you a whole barrel of apples because you should know that. OK, that’s all I have to say.” Then he sat down and there was no doubt the folks on this Podcast learned that old saying, “a little child shall lead them!”

After the Podcast was done, I sat and thought about the faith of a child and the trust this boy had. No doubt he was right with his words because it would be impossible to say that God can’t do something. The question for all of us is “Do we have that faith and trust when things are not going well?” Like young James, we can say: “It’s I’m down to only one apple but I trust in God to give me what I need.”

But do we? When we see a sunset, a falling star, or the beauty of the earth and its critters and flowers…and so much more—do we trust that it didn’t come from us but it was our all-powerful and all-knowing Creator who flung the planets into orbit around those stars and he holds every single atom in its place…and yet, God is personal enough to love us deeply!

In Mark 10: 24-27 [GNT] “My children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” At this the disciples were completely amazed and asked one another, “Who, then, can be saved?” Jesus looked straight at them and answered, “This is impossible for human beings but not for God; everything is possible for God.”

So, the next time a challenge puts you in a whirl-wind, don’t whine, don’t be afraid. You can face it down–knowing that you have an all-powerful God who can take the impossible to the possible. Like our young James said, “if you can tell me something God can’t do I’ll give you a whole barrel of apples.” And that’s exactly what God will do for us all, AMEN!