Tim Richards
Since toilet tissue was not issued to Soviet troops in the field, soldiers used any available paper, including official documents. The repurposed paper was not water-soluble, so it was deposited in trash bins. Upon learning of this, spies from the US, England, and France began collecting and reading the Soviet Army’s “repurposed official documents”. Unsurprisingly, spies given this disgusting task often grumbled about the nasty work, but no one complained about the intelligence bonanza of Soviet secrets discovered. According to Wikipedia, the project, called Operation Tamarisk, eventually expanded to include agents who searched Soviet dumps for discarded intelligence.
I do not believe the idea of searching for secrets among enemy soldiers’ used toilet paper would have ever occurred to me, but this did not keep the program from becoming extremely productive. Operation Tamarisk seems unbelievable, but just because something is strange does not mean it is untrue.
The Bible is filled with numerous remarkable stories that seem impossible but are true. Allow me to share several examples:
Exodus 14:21-22 tells of the Israelites walking through the Red Sea on dry ground.
Joshua 6:1-20 describes how God’s people marched around Jericho once a day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day, then saw the city’s walls fall.
1 Samuel 17:1-51 narrates the story of young David, who defeated the giant Goliath using only a slingshot and a stone.
According to Daniel 6:1-23, after he refused to stop praying to God, Daniel was thrown into a pit of lions. Amazingly, God protected him from the hungry beasts.
John 11:1-44 records the story of how Jesus raised Lazarus, after he had been dead for four days.
Matthew 14:13-21 tells how Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000 men plus women and children with a little boy’s lunch of five small loaves of bread and two fish.
And finally, Jesus’ resurrection, the greatest miracle ever, is recorded in the final chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Does God always surprise us? No, many times, things happen the way we expect; however, each of these stories demonstrates how God sometimes does amazing things in extraordinary ways. Operation Tamarisk reveals that just because something seems unbelievable does not mean it is.
Many have had moments when God worked in ways that defied human logic. In those moments, our faith can become stronger if we pay attention to how God sometimes does the unbelievable in the difficult situations we all face at some point in our lives.
