Lord Of The Outcome

Anything is possible if a person believes.

Mark 9:23

Jesus makes a powerful promise: to anyone who believes, anything is possible. The question is, believes what? Does this mean that you and I can think up what we want to happen and then “believe” it into being? You probably already know that doesn’t work. From my experience, if I could manipulate God into doing everything I could think up by believing really hard, my life would be a mess.

It might be that this promise, and others like it, have become stumbling blocks for your faith because your experience does not seem to bear them out. If so, you are not alone. But this is a precious and powerful promise, and maybe we can untangle some of the misunderstandings that have kept you from being able to grab hold of it in faith.

Jesus spoke these words to a distraught father who had brought his son to Jesus for healing from uncontrollable convulsions. The father also brought his desperation and hopeless situation to Jesus. His nearly suffocated hope gasped this last, dying breath: maybe Jesus has the answer. That’s all the faith it takes. Just enough to let Jesus be Jesus in the midst of your all-hope-seems-lost situation.

Compare this to an incident Mark records just a few chapters earlier, when Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth and the people he had known all his life rejected him. Mark reported that “many who heard him were amazed. They asked, ‘Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?’ Then they scoffed, ‘He’s just a carpenter.’ . . . They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him” (Mark 6:2-3). Notice that they acknowledged what he could do, but they refused to believe in who he was.

Do you see the difference? Jesus promises that anyone who believes in who he is—anyone who entrusts himself to the person of Jesus—will never encounter an impossibility. Jesus won’t give a command performance in response to your expectation, but Jesus will be Jesus in your circumstances. We don’t need to believe in an outcome but in Jesus, the Lord of the outcome.

Jesus, I trust you. Right now, right here, in this situation, I trust you.

O slow of heart to believe and trust in the constant presence and overruling agency of our almighty Saviour!

Adoniram Judson(1788–1850), American missionary to Burma (now Myanmar)