I’m not gullible and I do not go around looking for ‘signs.’ My faith in God does not require
them. But, nothing in this life compares to those miracle moments when His Presence is near. When I see His
love healing a broken life, I see a miracle. When a person responds to the
Gospel of Christ and surrenders her life to Him, I see a miracle. When a little
child races up to me with an excited greeting and a warm hug, it is a wonderful
kind of miracle. Oh yes, I have experienced ‘real’ miracles, too. On a March morning in 1985, I saw our foster
son who had drowned in Dad’s farm pond restored to life, after doctors declared
that he would not recover. In those 20 months that Bev and I walked the cancer
journey, we experienced the miracle of love. Though we did not receive the
miracle of her healing, we were blessed to love each other up to that moment
she died in my arms. It is something of a miracle of God’s grace that I have
found my way through grief and loneliness without making a wreck of life.
Do you see the miracles that are happening all around you or
are you quick to dismiss things as ‘emotional’ or just coincidental?
John tells a story about some men who were so gripped by
their ideas about what God wanted and who He was that they missed a miracle
that was right in front of their eyes. "Inside
the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered
porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed— lay on the porches.
One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew how long he had
been ill, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick
man said, “for I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred
up. While I am trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me.” Jesus
told him, “Stand up, pick up your sleeping mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man
was healed! He rolled up the mat and began walking!”
What an amazing development, a cause for celebration and
rejoicing, right?
After 38 years a man is walking, whole, on his feet!
After 38 years a man is walking, whole, on his feet!
If we witnessed a miracle like that, would you not think
that everybody who knew him would be infected with his joy, overcome with his
excitement? Some men were not! John goes
on to tell us this important detail: “This
miracle happened on the Sabbath day.”
So, what, right? To some religious leaders
that was an important fact, even more important than a man being healed. “The Jewish leaders objected. They said to
the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! It’s illegal to carry
that sleeping mat!” He replied, “The man who healed me said to me, ‘Pick up
your sleeping mat and walk.’ ”Who said
such a thing as that?” they demanded. The man didn’t know, for Jesus had
disappeared into the crowd. But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and
told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may
happen to you.” (John 5:2-14, NLT)
These religious leaders, people who ought to have known God’s’
work when they saw it, were blinded by their traditions. A man who was walked
around after being crippled for his entire life was violating their religious
traditions! And so they rushed past the miracle to register an objection. It had happened before to Jesus. Matthew tells
about a healing of a man with a deformed hand. There, too, the Pharisees only
saw that He did it on the Sabbath, in violation of their prohibition against
doing 'work,' so instead of rejoicing
that a man was healed, they "discussed
plan to kill Jesus."
Before we shake our heads at these men, condemning their
refusal to see the miracles, let us remember that we, too, can become captives
of our own ideas about what God can do, where He should do it, and with who He
can work. I have missed my share of God’s wonders while being so focused on my
plans, my ideas, my needs that I was unable to respond to His leading and
unwilling to feel the wonder or share the joy.
Today, the God of
wonder is at work! And He will be
working in your neighborhood, and mine, too. The question is, will we perceive
His work? Will we rejoice with those in whom He is working?
Here's a word from the Word, Jesus' words of frustration
with those who would not see what He was doing.
Let these words challenge you to celebrate the wonder, to
open your eyes to the miracles of the hand of God who is here, now!
“To what can I compare
this generation? They are like children
sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ”‘We played the flute
for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ For
John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son
of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a
drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.”’ But wisdom is proved right
by her actions.”
Then Jesus began to
denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because
they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the
miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they
would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be
more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you,
Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths.
If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it
would have remained to this day." (Matthew 11:16-23, NIV)
Abba, give us eyes that can see what You are doing.
Protect us from feeling that we ‘know’ all there is to know
about You.
Make us childlike in our faith while keeping us from
childishness!
Teach us to rejoice in You, to seek You, to love You.
For Jesus’ sake and His Name, I pray. Amen
________________
I've heard a thousand
stories
Of what they think
You’re like
But I've heard the
tender whisper
Of love in the dead of
night
You tell me that
You’re pleased
And that I'm never
alone
You're a Good Good
Father
It's who You are
It's who You are
It's who You are
And I'm loved by You
It's who I am
It's who I am
It's who I am
Anthony Brown | Pat Barrett
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Publishing)
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