She, like so many of us, will only trust the Lord as far as we can see and will not believe His promises unless the MEANS of the performance is visible to us. Where are the water pots? Where are the buckets? How is He going to perform this? How is He going to accomplish this difficult task??? We have a million questions. We try so hard to figure out how the Lord is going to do things. When we think we have it all figured out, He totally baffles us and does something else.
There was a magician who was hired to do his act on a cruise ship. He had been there for several years and did the same act over and over because the crowd was continually changing. He enjoyed the good life, spending most of his time out on the deck working on his tan rather than new tricks.
One day the Captain bought a parrot and the parrot came with him every night to see the magic show. The bird learned all the tricks as to where the cards, flower, etc. were hidden by the magician in his act. The bird would say, “the card is up his left sleeve, the flower is under the pot, he hid the money under his shoe…”
Because the parrot caught on fast, it was getting harder by the day for the magician to come up with new tricks. The magician hated the parrot for giving away all of his tricks, but since he was the Captain’s, he couldn’t just weigh the bird down and throw him overboard.
Late one night the engine room exploded and the ship sank within minutes. Miraculously, the magician found himself clinging to a log. He was the only one left alive. As the sun came up in the morning, he turned around and here at the end of the log was that parrot. They just glared at each other and said nothing. This went on for three days.
On the fourth day the parrot finally broke the silence and asked, “OK, I give up--what did you do with the ship”
Oswald Chambers said, “The thing that approaches the very limits of His power is the very thing we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He will do.”