Impossible Circumstances Call for Prayer and the Impossible Dream of Optimism

I'm currently facing my own impossible dream circumstance, and I've been praying non-stop for God to grant me the wisdom and tools in order to make the impossible possible....all to the glory of God! I thought this would be a great re-post as it was something I was re-reading, myself! -Jackie Monroe

By Dr. Russ

Do you believe in making the impossible possible?  If you don’t, then stop counting yourself among the optimists of the world. 

Who would have believed that four years ago Amanda Knox, who had just been convicted of murdering her roommate in Italy, would be acquitted of the charges yesterday.  We think of America as a place for justice and we know how hard such a judicial reversal would be here, and I know I believe it must be even harder in a country like Italy.

If you look around you, I believe that everyday you will find something positive about which can be said: “I never thought that could happen or be possible.” A football team comes from behind scoring six touchdowns in the last quarter, or a good friend of yours finally lands a dream job.  A handicapped kid makes a difference in someone’s life.

How do we make the impossible come true? It starts with prayer.  In his book, Sun Stand Still, Steve Furtick asks us to embrace “audacious faith” and pray for the impossible.  According to Furtick, God wants us to pray for the impossible, because when He answers a request for the impossible He is glorified and He looks good; believers become stronger in their belief and non-believers come into the fold.  But, even Furtick says that no matter how much we believe, there will come a time when our faith will be challenged.

When I was 15 and my mother was dying of Cancer, she came to me and told me the story of how she had had her faith challenged, even lost faith for much of her life.  She told me that when she was 12 and her mother was dying of Cancer, she was told by the adults around her to pray and her mother would live.  Well her mother didn’t live. My mother wanted me to know how much that shook her belief in God for much of her adult life.  She did not want me to lose faith upon her death.

As Furtick says, sometimes you pray your best, most honest heartfelt prayers – there is no answer, the answer is NO, despite pure motives and good alignment with your best estimate of God’s purpose for your life – the breakthrough does not come.  The Cancer spreads, you are still unemployed, marital problems worsen, the crisis is unresolved.

What is the role of crisis in our lives?

Every prayer for the impossible is born of some crisis, some problem that seems insurmountable.  According to Furtick:

• Theologically speaking . . . most of the major opportunities recorded in the Bible were born in crisis . . . the greatest opportunities in out lives come out of crisis too.  

• God does not take away our adversity – he develops our faith and demonstrates his strength by working though our adversity. 

That’s right. He wants to teach and help us learn how and that we can overcome the adversity, no matter how intimidating.

So what do we do when a prayer is not answered the way we think it should be:

1. We realize that God is giving us an even greater crisis and hence greater opportunity to serve and reveal His glory.  So keep on praying and trying.
2. We need to keep on praying for the impossible even if it takes 40 years or 40 generations of prayer passed on from one generation to the next. 
3. Realize that the greater the crisis – the greater the revelation when it is resolved.
4. It took 100 plus years of audacious faith and prayer after the Civil War before Martin Luther King Junior led his successful march for freedom to the edge of the Promised Land in the 1960’s and another 40 before America elected an African American President.
5. None of the audacious prayers prayed in the 145 years between 1863 and 2008 – between emancipation proclamation and Obama’s election – were in vain or for naught. All politics aside – I’m talking about achieving the goal of freedom and equality for all.

If you aren't praying for the impossible, you need to start NOW!  Just making the prayer will improve your positive viewpoint.  Then, get started on helping God make the prayer come true.  Remember God took the Israelites to the Promised Land, but they had to follow Joshua into battle after battle to win it.  MLK took his followers to the edge of the Promised Land only after they endured beatings, jailings, dog bites, and fire hosings. 

{Key reference: Sun Stand Still, by Steven Furtick} 

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Optimism: Labor Day, the American Work Ethic and Effort

By Dr. Russ

Monday is Dr. Russ Busster Day.  A Dr. Russ Busster is a specific strategy used to “Busst-Up” any pessimism or negative thinking standing in the way of your optimism this week. 

Labor Day

Labor Day is a day when we celebrate the “fruits of our labor,” the “American Work Ethic,” and the value of working hard, laboring and toiling to accomplish goals.  The Protestant work ethic was a significant force in shaping the way Americans view work.  The New England Puritans, Pennsylvania Quakers, and other protestant sects believed the “moral life” was one of hard work and determination, and settling in the new world became an opportunity to prove moral worth.  This belief system was fundamental to American emergence as the dominant world economic power in the early 20th century.

What is Effort?

Hard work implies effort.  We admonish our children as we were admonished by our parents to try harder.  How often have we heard, “You can accomplish anything you want to if you try hard enough?”  But really as I think about it, what do the words ‘effort’ and ‘try’ really mean.  How does one try harder?  Do I flex my muscles?  Do I think about the goal?  Are there a set of skills to be learned to become a more effortful individual?

One on my Core Principles of Optimistic Living is a focus on effort – trying one’s hardest, one’s best to accomplish one’s goals. I have defined optimism as a skill to be learned and practiced.  Effort is a key tool of the optimist and also involves a set of strategies that can be learned. 

A Dr. Russ Childhood Story

When I was in sixth grade, the teacher assigned a report to be done on a topic of our choice. I chose something to do with cars.  We had several weeks to complete it. Despite my mother’s admonitions to work on it, I had procrastinated and put it off to the last minute.  Now the night before it was due, having spent the weekend camping with the Boy Scouts, my mother ordered me to my room to do the report.  About 45 minutes later I came out and announced the project was done.  My mother glanced at me in disbelief, but must have decided I would suffer “natural consequences” for my lack luster effort at the hands of the teacher.  She was right.  I had produced a meager five pages of magazine pictures of automobiles pasted on to colored construction paper and stapled together with a cover sheet.  At school, I saw everyone had book size reports 20 to 50 pages long.  The oral report was a disaster, outright embarrassing.  My grade – a D; should have been an F.

“Fast forward” to ninth grade. The English teacher assigned my first “term” project worth one-third of our grade. I chose the topic of the British, Elizabethan Navy – had some kind of fascination with this era of history.  In the moment, I recalled my sixth grade fiasco, and vowed I was not going to let that happen again!  I began work immediately, went to the Philadelphia Public Library after school everyday; found tons of resources and made hundreds of note cards with proper citations.  I turned in a forty-five page report; got an A+, felt a great sense of personal satisfaction.

Negative vs. Positive Motivation 

In the first case I was demonstrating “negative motivation” characterized by a perception that I did not have a strategy for getting from the beginning to the end of the task.  Instead I procrastinated and took an ill thought out “short cut.”  

In the second case I was demonstrating “positive motivation” in that I conceptualized and followed a set of planned steps to accomplish my goal.  An optimist learns that effort is not just a matter of “sheer will power,” but more a mater of strategic thinking about a step-by-step process needed to accomplish the goal.  “Will power” helps in moving through the steps, “pushing through” when stuck, staying involved and on-task during a boring phase, reminding oneself of the goal.  Strategic thinking is involved in breaking the larger goal into sub-goals and specific steps, monitoring progress, budgeting time, reassessing and starting over as necessary. 

Monday’s Labor Day, Dr. Russ Bussters

Optimists learn that effort is a learned set of action strategies that can be used to accomplish a desired goal. Effortful behavior involves moment-to-moment self-talk that monitors and controls an internal dialogue related to:

1.    defining and clarifying the nature of tasks and goals
2.    generating means of solution
3.    monitoring process and errors
4.    anticipating success 

Another Dr. Russ Childhood Story 

When I was a junior in High School, I finally made the varsity men’s soccer team because I figured out how to “leave it all out there on the field.”  The summer before, I began contemplating what it might mean to try my hardest in soccer.  My “internal motivational dialogue” began to go something like this:

• “never stop going for the ball even if you run the length of the field stuck to the opponent’s side,” “no matter what, keep trying to take the ball away from the opponent,” “keep putting your foot in there between his to get to the ball,” “always look to stay engaged, stay moving,” “try tricks, spin twirl, move those feet like a magician,” “run and work out harder in practice for more stamina.” Not only did I make the team, I became the starting mid-fielder!