How
many times do you ask God for a sign of
what the future holds? Before I found
the Lord I thought I could make my life
better by reading my horoscope to see
what the stars could tell me. One time I
even went to a fortune teller to see if
she could shed some light on what was in
store for me.
Have you ever felt so desperate for the
answer to your prayer that you would do
just about anything to learn what the
future holds? If you only knew what the
outcome was going to be you could wait
on God so much easier. The future would
once again have some direction and even
though you dread the possibility that
your future might not include what or
who your praying for you may have
convinced yourself that any sign or word
that it might, will get you through.
There is a Catholic nun named Briege
McKenna who has an extraordinary healing
ministry . She recounts her life story
in the book Miracles Do Happen
(St. Martin's Paperbacks - 1992). Prior
to her ministry, she had a close
encounter with a modern-day scorcerer
that taught her an essential lesson.
At the urging of friends, she considered
a man who others claimed was a
"prophet." He seemed to possess
extraordinary powers and could tell
people things about their lives that
only they knew. During the course of her
visit with him, she felt increasingly
uncomfortable. Even so, she consulted
with him again.
As they talked, she realized the man was
trying to destroy her faith and she
began to understand the gravity of her
mistake: "First, I should not have gone
to a 'prophet.' I was trying to see the
future, it was like fortune-telling,
like seeking a false god. I was doing
what God said not to do in the first
commandment, 'Thou shalt not put strange
gods before me --' I must leave the
future completely to Him.
Second, I had learned the difference
between judging and discerning. The
first time I went to the prophet, I knew
something was wrong, but I thought I
should not judge him."
The Lord delivered Briege from this
encounter with magic and, instead,
performed a wonderful miracle in her
life. It occured on December 9, 1970.
Before that, she had been diagnosed with
rheumatoid arthritis so severe that she
had to be hospitalized for several
months. Briege even wore plaster-of-paris
boots for a time in order to prevent her
feet from becoming deformed. But nothing
worked.
One day she decided to attend a prayer
service. Though she brought a laundry
list of prayer requests, physical
healing wasn't one of them. As she
waited for someone to pray with her, she
closed her eyes, and felt a hand on her
head. But when she looked up, no one was
visable.
"There was a power going through my body
-- I felt like a banana being peeled. I
looked down. My fingers had been stiff,
but not deformed like my feet. There had
been sores on my elbows. I looked at
myself. My fingers were limber, the
sores were gone, and I could see that my
feet, in sandals, were no longer
deformed. I jumped up screaming. 'Jesus!
You're right here!"
Today, Briege is a woman of immense
energy and joy. Since then, thousands of
people have benfited from her ministry,
which has taken her to remote corners of
the world.
Imagine what might have happened had
briege listened to that false prophet.
She might well be a woman bereft of
faith and hope, still crippled by a
cruel disease. Instead, she had faith in
the one true God and ignored the lies of
the enemy about a bleek and painful
future. She looked beyond the flesh and
forward in the spirit and is now an
extraordinary emissary of God!
The moral to this story is that no
prediction is better than the perfect
plan God has for you when you seek Him
first.
Miracles come to those who simply
believe.
