What do you think? Are there miracles happening today?
I was reading in my Bible about the wonderful miracles of Elijah and Elisha. In one, Elisha helped a widow whose husband had died, and she was now destitute. The husband had been a man of God and this widow, left with two sons, needed help.
God helped the widow, but he let Elisha do the honors. Elisha asked the woman what assets she had to pay off her debts and the only thing she had to her name was a single jar of oil for use in food preparation. Elisha told her to go to her neighbors and collect as many empty jars as she could and then return to her home with her sons, shut the door and start filling the empty jars from her jar of oil.
Locked in the house, she and her sons poured the oil from her container into a jar after jar after jar and miraculously she filled every empty container she had collected. Then, when every jar was filled, her jar ran empty. The widow was able to sell the oil, pay her debts, and keep her house and sons with her.
That desperate woman never questioned anything Elisha told her. She asked him to help and trusted him to know what to do. What a great God we have. We get to see our God’s goodness clearly through miracles when we have great faith like that widow. We need to trust and believe.
I sometimes think my eyes may be blind to the many miracles God provides for me to see each day. From the daffodil flowers and tulip leaves popping up through the soil to my neighborhood squirrel’s crazy antics that make me laugh, there are wonders of God waiting for me every moment of every day. Do I see them all? Surely not. I’m busy getting from here to there and doing this and that. How could I possibly stop to… Yes, there is no one answer – smell the roses, wave to the laughing children at the playground, watch the sunrise, breathe in the ocean air.
Is life here on Earth a miracle? I would say yes. Just look at the wonders of the human body and how it functions. The organs, the senses, and the brain. We are walking miracles and when we are ill, we pray for recovery, rejuvenation, as it were, for our bodies.
Still, have you seen a real bonafide miracle? I have. With the reliance on Jesus, I have seen diseases cured. I have seen addictions stopped cold – drugs, alcohol, pornography – you name it, and I am sure there is also someone nearby you who wholly turned their addiction over to Jesus and was healed.
Testimonials can be viewed on the internet, but I would imagine every one of us knows someone who has been healed physically by our Lord, as well.
Why is it that we don’t celebrate the simplest healing of a fracture as a miracle? I can’t imagine. The fact is that God gave us bodies that regenerate skin and tissues, where broken bones will heal and be strong again and torn muscles will repair.
How extraordinary the human body is and how much we are still learning about it. Yet, we take this whole miracle of human anatomy for granted. Just as if you and I were not walking miracles of God’s creativity.
I would not be writing today if God’s intervention by way of miracles was not true. As a 20-something, I was driving the dark, lonely interstate between Pennsylvania and West Virginia one night when I dozed off. Thankfully, God had placed a semi-truck and driver in the right place to see my car heading off the highway directly toward a bridge abutment. I woke to the blaring sounds of the truck’s air horn just in time to look up and maneuver my car back onto the road and out of harm’s way.
I could give several examples of God’s intervention for me on the highway, as well as with my health, all to keep me alive. I thank Him every time one of those memories comes to mind. I see these interventions as miracles because, without them, I would be dead.
I imagine that most of us have seen God’s hand in many ways, some of which can be classified only as miracles. We have witnessed a clear intervention by the Creator to touch our lives or those lives of others in an unexplainable way. This is the God that reaches out to us.
What a true miracle it is that Jesus’ death compensates for all our rotten sins! That He took the punishment we deserve of death and allows us to be able to live. That is the true story of miracles, isn’t it?
The love of our heavenly Father for us reaches through time and space to call us to Himself. The miracle of grace is that He provided a way for us to be pure as snow when our filthy sin is seen through the sacrifice of Jesus.
The very miracle of His mercy is that we aren’t cut down dead with the first sin we commit.
Miracles are miracles because they are unexplainable.
To me, this grace, love, and mercy of the Father and Son to choose to seek and live with this fallen race is truly unexplainable. The real miracle is that God invites and allows us to accept this truth and join His family as brothers and sisters in the Family of God – an ‘almost’ heavenly miracle for us to enjoy here on Earth!
Yes, miracles abound today. Please open our eyes, God, and let us see.
ED. NOTE: Amy Patsch writes from Ocean City. Email her at writerGoodGod@gmail.com.
