What are the odds?

• • Will be involved in a drunk-driving accident sometime in your life: 2 out of 3
  • Get married at least once by the age of 30: 11 out of 20
  • Will have a marriage ends in divorce: almost 1 in 2
  • Can get away with murder: almost 2 in 5
  • Will get selected as a contestant on The Price Is Right (assuming you’re in the audience): 1 in 36
  • Might fall to your death: 1 in 218
  • Will get audited by the IRS: 1 in 160
  • Were born with 11 fingers or toes: 1 in 500
  • Will make a hole-in-one in golf: 1 in 5,000
  • Will be injured by a toilet: 1 in 10,000
  • Win an Oscar: 1 in 11,500
  • Might die in an airplane crash: 1 in 205,552
  • Will drown in a bathtub: 1 in 840,000
  • Lose your eyesight from laser eye surgery: 1 in 5 million
  • Become an astronaut: 1 in 12.1 million
  • Get elected President of the United States of America: 1 in 32.6 million
  • Will contract the bubonic plague: 1 in 46.6 million
  • Die by vending machine: 1 in 112 million
  • WILL WIN THE MEGA MILLIONS JACKPOT: 1 in 302.5 million

ZERO.  And yet, God asks His followers to do the impossible every day.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

God’s answer is different for everyone.  But,  whoever you are,  God calls you to do the  “impossible.”

Jesus asks the rich man to do the impossible, “Sell everything.”   Jesus’ demands of discipleship is the equivalent of threading a needle’s eye with a camel.  The disciples rightly gasp, “Who then can be saved.”  Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (cf. Luke 18:18)

When the angel appears to Mary announcing the birth of Jesus.   She asks, “How can this be? ”  The angel replies, “With God, nothing is impossible.”

The notorious tax collector, Zaccheus expresses interest in Jesus.  Except for the dinner guests, no one was privy to their conversation.  All we know is the impossible happened that day.

Following Jesus is as miraculous as the creation of the world.  We are His impossible, improbable new creation.