Mashed Potatoes: With or Without Gravy

“Difficulty is the very atmosphere of miracle, it is a miracle in its first stage.  If it’s to be a great miracle, the condition is not difficulty, but impossibility.”

_Lettie B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert

Ms. Cowman sounds a bit like a Army recruitment sergeant.

I get it, God is a miracle working God and we should never stop hoping he will work one on our behalf.

But…

I stick with my old adage: “Counting on a miracle is usually a bad strategy.”  

“The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little bit longer.”
― U.S. Navy Seabees Construction Battalions WWII

There’s two things you can count on when it comes to miracles – they’re rare and you never know when one will drop.

So here’s my advice:

Since they’re so rare and so unpredictable and are mostly about God’s agenda (not ours), it’s probably best to never include “a miracle” as a part of your success formula. 

Your plans for succeeding should be like making mashed-potatoes: Make them so good that they’re delicious without the gravy.  And if God decides to work a miracle on your behalf, well…that’s the gravy.