“How’s that going to work?”

I would venture to say that we might ask that question as often as once a day, maybe even more. We ask this question in the very mundane situations of everyday life, and perhaps when we are confronted with more serious situations.

What makes us ask this question? We ask it when the cold, hard facts don’t add up, or when we don’t like what we see facing us. And what usually accompanies all of this is a feeling of frustration and perhaps fear.

The man from Baal-shalishah who was told by Elisha to give 20 barley loaves to the huge crowd, and the apostle Philip was probably asking the same question: “How’s that going to work?” And looking at the facts, things just didn’t add up. Yet, it all worked out, didn’t it? And the reason? Very simple:

All things are possible for God. Or another way to say it: Nothing is impossible for God.

So, when things don’t add up the way that you would want them to, remember this simple fact, and try not to give in to your feelings of fear and frustration.

But we must have faith. We must also have the courage to hang in there with Christ. In the stories we heard today the situation is resolved almost immediately, and everyone walks away “happy campers.” More often than not, though, it doesn’t happen that way. It’s one thing to say “nothing is impossible for God” after the happy ending has taken place, it’s another to be able to say this when we are surrounded by the chaos. But to have confidence in God before we have an answer is truly the way of faith—and a grace.

In order to live all of this out we have to have hope. Father Jacques Philippe in his book, Interior Freedom, writes: “Hope is a choice that often demands an effort. It is easier to worry, get discouraged, be afraid. Hope means trusting. When we hope we are not being passive, we are acting.”

So keep this in mind: God will respond to the hope we place in Him, and will intervene in our favor.

One last thing. It’s from a poem titled “The Portal of the Mystery of Hope.” It’s written as if God were speaking:

If it were from limpid days that I made limpid days,

If it were with souls with clear water that I made my springs,

From clear water that I made clear water;

If it were from pure souls that I made pure souls,

Heavens, that would be nothing. Anyone could do as much.

And there wouldn’t be any secret to it.

But it’s from sullied water, old water, stale water.

But it’s from an impure soul that I make a pure soul and that’s the most beautiful secret in the whole garden of the world.

Nothing is impossible for God.