Definition of Impossible Missions ~ And Why We Do Them

Contents

  1.  Impossible – General Meaning
  2.  Impossible – Specific, Concrete, Real-life Meaning
  3.  Mandatory Fresh Revelation Daily – Yesterday Not Good Enough
  4.  Most Impossible Requirement & Prerequisite – Matt 6:6


    1.  Impossible – General Meaning. The down-pouring of God’s Spirit into people for outgoing flows of service out into the world is on display in the great number of languages and cultures reached in Acts 2:8-12 (“each of us hears them in our native language .. Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome; Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues).  This work continues.  This work of reaching a world full of languages and cultures is itself a first impossible mission – made possible by the Holy Spirit.  So huge is this task to receive the down-pouring of the Spirit that results in obedience in outgoing service into all the world, that all the records and histories of the world could not contain the variety of missions still going out in flows under this mandate (John 21:25).

    Some of us have experienced miracles of speaking in our native languages and others hear in their own languages (for us, this is rare).  We also admire and support the long, hard, patient work of translation groups like teams of Wycliffe Bible Translators who enter a new culture with a new language and sometimes spend years learning the new language first before translating a version of the Bible into the new, native language.  We sometimes need to take field guides to another language along with us to do our best to speak in what to us is a foreign language. Translating the work of the Spirit into another language can happen in many modes. Even if translation happens in a mode of intense mental study, help from Holy Spirit is still mandatory.

    2.  Impossible – Specific, Concrete, Real-life Meaning – the further definition of impossible missions is a judgment defined by standards and established criteria in business, clinical, professional, sciences, skilled trades and vocational practices that make and publish judgments subject to peer review for what counts as a case, a mission, a project that is judged impossible.  It can be life and death critical to remember – impossible is a judgment call – because God retains the power to affirm, modify, or override our judgments.  God sometimes affirms that a certain mission is impossible at this time, or is impossible to us in our current teams, or impossible in this location, and so on. A naive belief that all things are possible for God is not a justification for rushing into any of the missions identified below – mature discernment is needed.

For specific examples, impossible missions across various businesses, professions, skilled trades, sciences, and vocations include the following kinds of practical judgments —

1) incurable and yet unidentified diseases in medicine, or extreme cases of multiple co-occurring psychiatric conditions entangled with multiple co-occurring medical conditions that most advanced caregivers judge beyond their practice levels and,

2) phases of intractable conflicts in cases of business, economics, and financial catastrophes and that originate in greed, natural disasters, wars, incompetent decisions, or all of these combined to destroy lives, families, groups, and regions in famine, displaced populations, genocide, and vulnerabilities to human and sexual trafficking and,

3) people themselves as individuals and groups judged beyond remedy and incarcerated in prisons, or worse, isolated in economic prisons of poverty of biblical proportions, frozen-out of sharing economic well-being,  including individuals in both poverty and also in deep phases of mental and medical illnesses who have lost rational capacity of choice,

4) exceedingly expensive judgments in law and resolutions to conflicts in problem solving, when judgments and solutions require prohibitive expenses beyond any value gained in return,

5) and for builders and contractors here, consider cases of impossible construction projects, see 10 Construction Projects That Broke the Bank, and not just impossible for financial reasons, but impossible because of all the impossibilities above added together in any building project,

6) cases of spiritual care in all cultures and across all religions, and involving hearts, motives, intentions and practices of evil hardened beyond reaches of healing effects of ordinary care, good faith, and love, and including individuals and groups of hardened hearts who sometimes wander through life in degrees of barren wildernesses, even unto death.   

In all of these cases – impossible is a judgment call – and just because we may believe that nothing is impossible for God, a naive belief in this judgment call  does not mean that God makes all things possible for our teams, in our time, in our expectations, our way  – “There is a sin that leads to death. I am not telling you to pray about that” (1 John 5:16).   The children of Israel tried to bull-rush the promised land to take it — too late – too early can be just as bad.  There is no substitute for simple honesty in our judgment calls – and submitting our judgments to God for clarification, confirmation, or correction.  Our judgments may be correct – and mean nothing except harm and failure until they are fully confirmed, or confirmed in part and corrected in part. We cannot stand on the basis of past maturity.  We need the maturity to submit all things to God – here and now.  Continually.

Our work in the field involves insertions into impossible missions.  We are inserted to do this work in small and large scales – in scales as small as individual and one-on-one care (counseling, education, friendship, legal, medical, spiritual care).  We are inserted to do this work in scales as large as teams of 20-30 inserted to cooperate with other teams in missions of impossible national and regional catastrophes, including in war zones, most recently in ISIS/ISIL controlled territories.


3.  Mandatory Fresh Revelation Daily – Yesterday Not Good Enough

Not all impossible missions end in good results.  No matter what heroic and selfless efforts are expended – even to the point of selfless giving unto death – not all impossible missions end in good results.

And not all missions undertaken by corps of full-time trainers and full-time apprentices are impossible.  Some missions are easy, moderate, difficult.  Joyous.

History alone is never enough as our guide.  Not even the history prior to the book of Acts, nor the history since the time of the book of Acts, and especially not our own histories of witnessing and serving in amazing Results (see above, Acts 2:17, and Acts 2:6).

We need daily Renewed Volumes of practical revelations as promised in Acts 2:17 – we need the Holy Spirit here and now in the present to reveal and train us how to serve in our current missions.

We need daily volumes of instructions (again, Acts 2:17) complimented by increasing distinctions and ever finer differentiations for each mission.  Each mission is different, distinct, particular, unique.  We grow up in the Spirit over time and receive – increasing differential diagnoses – for harder and harder missions, for new and unique missions, and we need unique plans for each new mission (one example of this differentiation, here).  We are called continually to combine the best of our spiritual gifts into the best of our learned skills.  This work of constant learning how to serve in harder and unique missions is humbling, staggering, frustrating, error-prone in our darkest human conditions, and thankful in the Presence of Everlasting Joy overcoming our darkness by shining through our lesser candles – “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5, New International Version).

The most impossible difficulties are not covered until the third and final article in this series – Purposes in Detail ~ impossible missions in detail ~ details about us, teams, locations, missions, mandatory impossible prerequisites.

In summary, we need the fresh bread of the Holy Spirit daily – give us this day our daily bread –  which bread is the Holy Spirit – “So if you, despite being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Luke 11:13) – the Holy Spirit is the Good Gift given to us so we can know and commune in God’s Love, and for doing impossible missions, and for doing these missions daily because “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:34).  Added to the task of going into a world full of languages and changing cultures (Acts 2:8-12), these missions require full-time commitments at levels up to 80+ hour work weeks in mentors and students.  It is not an option to partner with the Holy Spirit part-time and then do what we will the rest of the time.  As stated at the beginning on the front page, the commitment is — “We have left everything to follow you!” (Mark 10:28).

4.  The Most Impossible Requirement & Prerequisite – Matt 6:6 (duplicate of previous page):  this is a command and not an option, namely, to go daily to the Inner Room, and close the door to all other influences of all kinds, and then stay in the Inner Room until released by the Father every day, instead of rushing out of the Inner Room prematurely after 3 seconds of prayer because it is ‘boring,’ or because ‘nothing is happening,’ or because I just want to go listen to the noise, noise, noise of my favorite Christian entertainment, a YouTube, a sermon, or even music, or worse, not going back to the Inner Room because the Holy Spirit commanded me to do something I do not want to do (“go to Nineveh … apologize to your wife”).  Sooner or later there may come a time in the Inner Room when we pray – “Father .. if you will, take this cup of suffering away from me. Not my will, however, but your will be done” (Luke 22:42, Good News Translation). A testing point in the Inner Room day after day is when we quit because we don’t get our way.  The difficulty of this daily discipline – Matt 6:6 – and staying in the Inner Room especially until released by the Spirit, and far away from all the empty praise of men (“close the door”) – as a lifetime habit, and not just to get our way in a few prayers during emergencies in our need – but daily prayer in the Inner Room until released as a whole lifetime habit until the day we die – is covered further @ Purposes in Detail ~ impossible missions in detail ~ details about us, teams, locations, missions, mandatory impossible prerequisitesThe reason why Matt 6:6 is a prerequisite to working in teams as corps is because those who come to work in corps, but who are not full in the Inner Room will come as parasites, needy, dependent, and always taking from the group for selfish purposes, but not coming in Overflow to give – these corps do not exist to create co-dependents (see the parable of the foolish virgins who want to take oil out of someone else’s lamps (Matthew 25).  Corps do not exist to create and enable foolish virgins. Come full, or don’t come at all.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:6).


Details about us ~ Purposes in Detail ~ impossible missions in detail ~ details about us, teams, locations, missions, mandatory impossible prerequisites

submitted by Illyrian/EOL
reviewed, Admin PLB Accountant, R. Roma
(all bios)

2 thoughts on “Definition of Impossible Missions ~ And Why We Do Them”

  1. We have the mission impossible of the bomb explosion of wild pigs in the Bay Area and $2.5 billion worth of damage.

    There must be something more we can do to make the super invader pigs happier and less damaging, if only we could satisfy them.

    Pigs everywhere.

  2. I am a graduate. Thankful to Jed for 3 years training.

    Recommend to Roma and staff to add definitions and statistical studies of the Super Wicked Problems (Levin, et al. 2012.) to these definitions of “Impossible Missions.” Impressive how Antonio and others used these studies on this web in the comments thread.

    Hello Adrian! Oink! And what nice family pictures in that newspaper article.

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