When your strength is clearly insufficient and you feel stuck, God is there to set you free.

Have you ever felt stuck? Have you ever reached the end of your rope and recognized your solutions, intuition, resources, and reserves were all tapped out? Have you painted yourself into a corner and realized there was no way out? Have you ever let your shoulders slump and thought, I just can’t?

That’s a scary place to be, yet sometimes God lovingly leads us there. When our strength is clearly insufficient, we are finally blessed to see—and believe—that God is there. And God does care.

When you feel stuck, read about the miracles of Jesus. In every single one, Jesus takes an impossible situation and resolves it instantly with powerful words. To someone with an incurable skin disease: “Be clean!” To a paralyzed man: “Take up your mat.” To a dead girl: “Get up!” To a deaf and mute man: “Be opened!” To a demon: “Come out of him!” To a dead man already in the grave: “Come out!” To soldiers pounding nails into his body: “Forgive them!” To a world stuck in inescapable sin: “It is finished!” How many times did Jesus resolve an impossible situation? Every time. Without fail.

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (Isaiah 40:29).

The miracles teach an incredible truth. Jesus entered our world marked by sickness, brokenness, guilt, pain, strife, despair, deficiency, weakness, darkness, and death. But when Jesus spoke, his powerful word brought healing, restoration, forgiveness, joy, peace, hope, wholeness, strength, light, and even life.

Jesus’ words and promises are just as powerful today. Are you stuck? Turn to Jesus. Are you tapped out? Listen to Jesus. Have you fully (and rightly) acknowledged, “I just can’t”? Trust in Jesus, who absolutely can.

Don’t get me wrong. “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus promised. But these troubles never get the last word. Jesus does. And he says, “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Jesus used his power and authority in extraordinary service and humility to forgive the guilt of all your sins. His victory at the cross is guaranteed at the empty tomb. That victory is yours.

You’re not stuck. He has set you free.

Author: Michael Ewart
Volume 112, Number 01
Issue: January 2025