Nothing Is Too Hard for You

“‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.’”
Jeremiah 32:17

Jeremiah spoke these words during an incredibly difficult time.

Jerusalem was under siege.
The situation looked hopeless.
There seemed to be no obvious way out.

Yet Jeremiah began by reminding himself of who God is.

“You made the heavens and the earth.”

In other words:

If You created the universe, then this situation is not beyond You.

It reminds me in some ways of the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…”
Matthew 6:9

Before Jesus teaches us to ask for our daily bread, forgiveness or deliverance, He teaches us to begin with God.

Our Father.
In heaven.
Holy is Your name.

Before we look at the size of our problem, we remember the greatness of our God.

Jeremiah does something similar.

Before focusing on the impossible situation surrounding him, he turns his attention toward the God who created everything.

And perhaps that is something we need to learn to do.

There are times in life when everything becomes too hard.

We find ourselves trapped in circumstances where there seems to be no way forward.

Sometimes we arrive there because of our own choices.

That was part of Israel’s story in Jeremiah’s time. Their rebellion against God had consequences.

But sometimes we face situations that are completely outside our control.

Either way, eventually we all encounter something bigger than ourselves.

Something we cannot fix.

Something we cannot reason our way through.

Something our own strength simply cannot overcome.

And perhaps sometimes God allows us to reach the end of our own ability because there are things we can only learn when we discover that our strength was never meant to replace His.

Think about the Red Sea.

Israel had nowhere to go.

The sea was in front of them.
Pharaoh’s army was behind them.

Humanly speaking, there was no solution.

Then God made a way where there wasn’t one.

Think about Lazarus.

By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead four days.

It wasn’t simply difficult anymore.

It was impossible.

And then Jesus called:

“Lazarus, come out!”

Sometimes God allows a situation to move beyond what human strength can accomplish so that when He moves, there can be no question about where the answer came from.

Yet something about our human nature still struggles with this.

The Israelites saw the Red Sea divide.

They saw God’s provision.

They experienced things we would describe as miraculous.

And yet they still struggled to trust Him.

People watched Jesus perform miracles.

They even saw Lazarus raised from the dead.

Some believed.

Others still resisted Him.

And that makes me wonder:

Why are we so determined to rationalise the things of God?

Why do we sometimes find it easier to believe in coincidence, chance or fate than to believe that a divine Father loves us and is actively involved in our lives?

Perhaps part of the answer takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

The serpent’s first attack wasn’t simply against Adam and Eve’s obedience.

It was against their trust in God’s character.

“Did God actually say…?”
Genesis 3:1

The enemy planted a question.

Can you really trust God?

Is God really good?

Is He withholding something from you?

And humanity has wrestled with those questions ever since.

Maybe one of the consequences of the Fall is that we find it easier to trust what we can control than the God we cannot.

We want explanations.

We want evidence.

We want guarantees.

We want to understand exactly how everything is going to work.

But faith asks us to trust God even when we cannot see the way forward.

And that is where Jeremiah’s words become so powerful.

Jeremiah wasn’t saying:

“This situation isn’t difficult.”

He was saying:

“This situation isn’t too difficult for God.”

There is a difference.

Faith doesn’t deny reality.

Faith looks reality directly in the face and then remembers who God is.

And later in the same chapter, God answers Jeremiah:

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?”
Jeremiah 32:27

Jeremiah says:

“Nothing is too hard for You.”

And God responds:

“Is anything too hard for Me?”

But that doesn’t mean God immediately removes every difficult circumstance.

Jerusalem would still fall.

There would still be consequences.

Yet God promised that destruction would not be the end of Israel’s story.

Restoration was coming.

And perhaps that is where faith becomes deeper than simply believing God can perform miracles.

Faith says:

I know You can change this situation.
But even while I am waiting, I will trust You in it.

Maybe the greatest lesson of Jeremiah 32 isn’t simply:

God can do the impossible.

Maybe it is:

When I am facing the impossible, I can trust the God for whom nothing is impossible.

I don’t have to understand everything He is doing.

I don’t have to see the way out.

I don’t have to know what tomorrow looks like.

I simply need to remember who He is.

He is the God who made the heavens and the earth.

He is the God who divided the sea.

He is the God who called Lazarus out of the grave.

And He is still the same God today.

So when everything around me says,

“There is no way.”

Faith reminds me:

“Nothing is too hard for Him.”

Maybe faith isn’t seeing enough evidence to finally believe.

Maybe faith is knowing God well enough to trust Him even when we cannot yet see.

Because sometimes I won’t understand what God is doing.

Sometimes I won’t know how He is going to do it.

Sometimes I won’t even see a possible way forward.

But I can still say with Jeremiah:

“Ah, Lord God! You made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for You.”