Asking for the Impossible

My blog post from December 30th, “10 questions for a new year” has been something I have gone back to and thought through several times the last few weeks. As I’ve considered each question, I’ve been challenged. Specifically question #2 (“What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?”) has been on my mind a lot since that blog post. I spent more time on that question it seems than some of the others, and have come up with a number of answers to this as to what I’m praying for. Here are a few of those "impossible" things on my list for 2010...

1. If you don’t know, we are in the process of adopting a little girl from Ethiopia. We had anticipated that this coming fall we would be able to bring her home, but during our homestudy last month, we were told that adoptions had slowed down quite a bit in Ethiopia. In fact, we were told our timeframe is now 12-18 months. It was disappointing to hear this news, but we know God is in complete control. Our desire is to bring our daughter home before Christmas, and although we were told the likelihood of this happening is slim and none, this is something we are both praying for. It may seem impossible, but we all know God can make it happen. If He doesn’t, we completely trust Him. He’s sovereign, His timing is perfect, and He knows what He’s doing. If He decides to allow us to bring our little girl home by Christmas, then that’s awesome. If He chooses to do otherwise, we trust in Him and know He’s faithful.

2. Our oldest son, Brooks (pictured below), God bless him, he is not the biggest fan of school. He doesn’t even go to kindergarten yet, just preschool, yet he’s just not real fond of going to school. I completely understand though…I hated school from day one (although Tammy has made me promise to never let our kids know that!). It seems impossible to us that Brooks would ever like going to school, but we are praying that somehow, someway his transition to kindergarten is easier than expected and that he actually enjoys going.

3. I’ll just leave #3 as an unspoken (or unwritten in this case). I wasn’t going to write anything for #3, but in honor of the humans I work with at iGoGlobal, who always like to add lots of unspoken requests whenever we pray as a staff, I had to at least write it here. So yes, #3 for me is an actual request I’m praying for, asking God to do something that to me seems impossible.

So, what about you? What’s the most humanly impossible thing or things you will ask God to do this year?

10 questions to ask at the start of 2010

Last year about this time I came across Don Whitney’s “10 questions to ask at the start of a new year.” Take some time to consider these thought provoking questions and how 2010 might be different for you than previous years…

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?