Have you ever had something asked of you that was so far outside of your comfort zone that you simply refused to do it?  Perhaps there is something new being expected of you that you have never done or tried before and there is no way you are about to start now.  Maybe the task at hand just sounds too hard — impossible for anyone to accomplish, let alone someone like me.  My guess is that you have been there with me more often than you want to admit.  We get really good at the excuses, don’t we?  We drag out all kinds of reasons as to why we can’t do whatever is being asked or expected.  Sometimes we get really creative and sometimes we respond with a simple, “I can’t”.

Yet, I wonder.  How often is that really true?  Do you and I know that it is really true when we respond that way?  I often heard a phrase growing up that went like this:  “Can’t never could ’til he tried.”  As much as I would try to push that thought aside or simply ignore it, there were always times when I would say, “I can’t”, and that phrase would jump into my mind and ask the simple question, “How do you know?”  When asked honestly and intently of our self, this question often reveals the true answer isn’t, “I can’t” but “I won’t!” 

We don’t like to get caught using the “I won’t” response.  It sounds so selfish.  It makes us appear lazy and unconcerned.  It puts the emphasis on our unwillingness to be involved.  We much prefer “I can’t”.  It gives the impression that we care.  It makes it sound like we want to, we simply are unable to.  “I can’t” says it is impossible.  The timing is wrong.  The request is wrong.  The setting isn’t right for me.  The task is beyond my ability.  I’m too young or too old.  Often these are just ways that we excuse our “I won’t” and attempt to portray it as “I can’t”. 

In the years that I directed children’s ministry and was a youth minister, I was constantly in need of volunteers to help with a wide variety of ministry tasks.  As I would ask, recruit, and even beg people to serve in some area of need, I would get a lot of “I can’t do that” but I do not recall ever having anyone actually say, “I won’t do that”.  I-can’t-itis is a plague that is wreaking havoc in our society and in our churches as it is symptomatic of the selfishness that defines the American culture.  Do you hear yourself in any of these statements?  . . . I can’t serve in the nursery.  . . . I can’t attend Sunday School, or any other Bible study for that matter.  . . . I can’t teach a children’s class.  . . . I can’t participate in a focused gathering of prayer for my church and community.  . . . I can’t be a sponsor at a youth event.  . . . I can’t make people feel welcome.  . . . I can’t tolerate people who sing, look, or act differently.  . . . I can’t help at a church work day.  . . . I can’t be involved in a nursing home, homeless center, or any other ministry that would take me out of my comfort zone.  . . . I can’t.  . . . I can’t.  . . . I can’t!

Well, just maybe you are right and you can’t — but God can!  Throughout the Bible, God selects common, ordinary people to do extraordinary — even impossible — things.  Imagine life if Noah had said, “I can’t build this boat, or ark, or whatever it is You are saying I need.”  . . . Oh, wait!  There wouldn’t be life, would there.  Or David saying, “I can’t defeat this giant.”  Imagine if Daniel had said, “It’s a law.  I guess I can’t pray.”  Or Mary saying, “I can’t be the mother of this Messiah that you say I am to have.”

Each of these people, along with many others, would have been right — at least by our definition.  The task expected of them was huge — seemingly impossible by our standards.  We get a good idea of this in Luke as God sends an angel to give Mary the news that she would give birth to the very Son of God.  Her immediate response doesn’t quite sound like “I can’t”, but it is at least a question at the heart of her words; “How will this be since I am a virgin?”  I know that because the angel responds with a way that it is possible by telling Mary that the baby she will have will be conceived by the Holy Spirit.  The angel goes on to say that not only will you Mary, a virgin, have a baby, but your aunt — the one who is beyond child-bearing age and is known to be barren, that aunt is going to have a baby as well.  I know the thought was at least forming in Mary’s mind that this can’t be because the angel states in Luke 1:37 that this will all happen because “nothing is impossible with God.”  Even with any questions and thoughts Mary may have had about why she couldn’t, she didn’t use the “I can’t” as cover for an “I won’t”.  Convinced or not of her ability to do what was being stated, she took the angel at his word that “nothing is impossible with God” and she responded with a willingness to be involved as she replies, “May it be to me as you have said.”

How about you and me?  Do we believe that nothing is impossible with God?  Do we live as if we serve a God who can do things in and through us that we think are impossible?  Does knowing that nothing is impossible with God make our statements of “I can’t” seem more like the “I won’t” that they are?

May you and I live obediently to God, surrendering anything that we say, “I can’t”, and asking Him if “He will”.