[...] Let's read once more the Gospel account of Peter walking on water at the Lord’s
command (Mt 14:22-34).
Have
you ever noticed? Christ goes around the New Testament making impossible
commands.
Peter
asked for an obedience, so: “Come to me.” And Peter obeyed the command to do
the impossible, and received divine power to do so (for a moment anyway.)
To
the paralytic: “Do the one thing you cannot do: Get up and walk.”
To
the man with the withered arm, who by definition cannot stretch out his hand:
“Stretch out your hand.”
To
the blatantly impossible command, Christ adds grace, the divine power to do the
impossible; and when man’s little “yes” is added, the miracle happens. “Behold
the handmaid of the Lord!”
Here
and now Christ commands the impossible: Forgive that person. Get up and go to
that painful job again today, practicing gratefulness and refusing bitterness,
and be light and salt. Love your wife sacrificially, submit to your husband.
Pour out mercy on that hateful person, do good to them and pray with genuine
warmth of love for those who hate you. And Christ faithfully provides the power
to do the impossible in response to our little Yes.
I
don’t raise many people from the dead. But to whatever extent I obey those
impossible commands, the grace of patience, peace, love, and forgiveness are
seen “not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the
Spirit and of power.”
Source: http://silouanthompson.net/2017/08/do-the-impossible/
CONVERSATION