I am firmly convinced that the Lord does miracles.
As I was driving back from lunch a little while ago, I was commenting on how much I loved my dad, how much I appreciated him, and how joyful I feel whenever I think about him. Like, I really, really, REALLY like my dad! :)
and in the briefest second, my mind flashed back to when I was thirteen.
bitter
distrustful.
closed off.
unforgiving.
hating my dad.
I remembered the first time I went to a retreat with my church’s youth group. God hit me powerfully with the need to forgive my dad, and I remember walking to the front to pray with somebody, weeping uncontrollably, utterly unable to release the memories and pain and abandonment from the past. I remember praying, “God, I am willing, but YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE THIS FROM ME. I can’t do it…”
He took it.
He simply took it.
Over the next 5 years He consistently pursued me and refined me and listened to all my ridiculous excuses and dried my tears and…He changed me.
I can now honestly say that I just love my daddy. :)
One of my favorite authors, Ted Dekker, wrote a book (fictional) about a little boy who was full of childlike faith, pure in heart, and the Lord would just do miracles through him at an astounding rate. But at one point in the book – well, actually the whole book plays this thought out – a preacher talking with the boy’s guardians says this:
Whoever said that a healed hand is more spectacular than a healed heart?
That thought has pierced my heart, over and over and over again.
Whoever said that the miracles we see…healings, financial things, open doors…whatever…who’s to say that any of these temporary things are more spectacular than a healed heart that lasts forever?
I think that when God does heal, He does it so we can see in the physical what He wants to do in the eternal.
Can God heal a hand, or a throat, or a stomach, or a body?
Yes!
Does He want to?
Sure!
But sometimes He won’t if our hearts are hard, or we’re only looking for proof of something that is already staring us straight in the face, or He has something better in mind entirely.
It is so silly to think that God is incapable of healing today. He does it all the time!
Just not always in the ways we expect…
Have you ever heard of Nick Vujicic?
Crazy passionate fiery man running after God’s heart – God has used him to bring many to Himself. Nick was born with no arms or legs. He has cried out for arms/legs many times. Do you know what God has told him?
What a failure it would be if you wanted arms and legs more than you wanted Me.
Would you rather arms and legs or 400,000 more people to be with Me forever?
Sometimes God has bigger things in mind for us than we can imagine, and sometimes he uses the deficiencies in our physical bodies to do those things.
Not always.
But sometimes.
If God is powerful enough to heal a heart, why do we think He’s so puny that He can’t heal a limb?
Surely that’s the least of His troubles…He could blink and it would be done.
Our hearts are more troublesome to Him, I think.
And so.
If He ever told me to pray for someone to be healed…I would do it. I mean, what could it hurt? If He wants to do it, He will.
And if you are waiting on a “miracle”, realize that 1) you are already IN one, and 2) you can trust His timing on the other. He knows what He’s doing. ;)
