When
people think miracles they think of amazing and supernatural
power from above. Many people don’t realize that the things
that make up a miracle aren’t necessarily what one would
expect. The end result of a miracle is always incredible and
we tend to think of the impossible when we think of a
miracle. Nothing is impossible for God. When in doubt, ask a
child.
My
eight year old son has what I believe to be the true
definition of “child like faith” as he has inspired me to
write on different subjects and is the first to take our
family needs into his room and pray for them. “OK Mom! I
prayed everything is going to be alright!”
When I
sat down to write this article he happened to come into the
room to borrow some paper to make yet another creation on
his computer, Louie is gifted when it comes to graphics
software and at times amazes me that he can navigate the
programs with absolutely no instruction. His latest endeavor
involves talking my husband into letting him have an otter.
“An
otter?” Mike exclaimed. “Lou, we don’t have anywhere to put
an otter”. (Not to mention we already have three Yorkies, a
Saint Bernard, a cat, two lovebirds, seven fish and a
hamster)
“Well”
my son replied “We can always use the girl’s bathtub”. This
did not go over well with the girls and it is everything I
can do to keep their bathroom clean as it is. Nevertheless,
Louie went in his room and printed his favorite picture of
an otter and hung it on his wall to pray for. He decided he
was going to write his prayer out, thus the need for some of
my paper. This was my big chance to get his opinion on such
an important topic.
“Hey
Lou, what’s a miracle?” I asked him casually. Louie thought
his answer over carefully before responding and then stated
it like it was.
“A
miracle is when things are really bad and no one can help
you and you pray to God and get what you pray for even
bigger or more than what you asked God for” Good answer. I
went to Merriam Webster to see how close he was.
According to the dictionary a miracle is an extraordinary
event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs, to
put it simply, “when things are really bad and no one can
help you and you pray to God and get what you pray for even
bigger or more than what you asked God for.”
“When
things are really bad” can entail many “human affairs” or
things we humans get ourselves into that require a cry to
God for intervention.
“Divine
intervention” usually implies that no one can help you so
you pray to God and God sends you bigger or more than what
you prayed for.
Straight out of the mouth of babes. Children have a way of
simplifying spiritual issues to the point of sometimes
making me feel dumb.
First
ingredient, when things are really bad: Some folks
start their miracle journey with a broken marriage, a lost
job that needs to be replaced, lack of money or financial
problems that leave a mountain of bills you don’t know how
your going to climb, a broken heart, a shattered dream, a
lost friend or some type of betrayal. A miracle has to
start somewhere. The more severe the problem the bigger and
better the miracle. Sometimes we go through half of our
lives trying to figure all of these problems out and never
stop to realize that The Lord is waiting for you to ask Him
to help or we get so caught up in the issues that we lose
sight of the fact that God wants us to call on Him. Then one
day the big one hits and we are left on our knees with no
relief in sight except from heaven. We dig out the Bible
and start praying… “Dear God, please help me I need a
miracle”.
“Finally!” the Lord exclaims, “He has turned to Me for help.
I have heard his cry and will heal his land but first I want
to show him that no matter what, he can always turn to Me.”
You
needn’t be a preacher or a missionary in the field, miracles
are given simply by looking up to God and asking, but often
we do not see our answer when we want to or see it the way
we expect to see it so we give up on what it was we hoped
for and we move onto something else. How many miracles have
been forfeited because the person asking just gave up for
lack of patience? Some people even get angry with God
because He doesn’t respond as quickly as they’d like. When
all they had to do was be still and let God work the miracle
in THEM first. They never knew that the answer was just
around the corner.
The
first ingredient of most miracles is “when things get really
bad”. Do you have a “really bad” right now? Then you have
the first ingredient needed for a miracle. Our cry to God
for His hand in our situation is what He desires from us. It
is by taking the bad, sometimes horrendous situations of His
children who believe in Him and fixing them when nothing or
no one else could have in a way that glorifies God. So when
things are looking really bad and you feel like there is no
hope and it feels like God has gone silent on you, take a
breather and tell yourself that YOU have what God needs to
not only make the miracle but to glorify Himself in the
process.
Now, I
know you may be saying to yourself “I just don’t understand
why God is allowing this bad thing to happen when He can
just fix it in the blink of an eye”, one reason God may be
saying “wait” is to bring about a change in you. It is
through the miracle process that we draw closer to Him and
we develop a personal relationship with Him. That is the
most important reason for wait (also a miracle in itself)…to
make you a more God-like person which in turn teaches you to
pray for guidance on all future matters thus avoiding the
need for the same devastating situation to rear its ugly
head again. The second reason why God may be requiring a
waiting period is to cause others to turn to Him through
your situation. If you as a believer are going through the
same situation one of your non-believer friends or
co-workers or maybe even a family member is going through
and the hopeless situation bares an incredible miracle you
have been made part of a testimony that faith, trust and
love of God has produced exactly what the Bible said it
would. It might make that non-believer take a step, if not a
plunge towards heaven for his answer.
A
perfect example of this is found in the Bible in the passage
John 11:38-44 where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.
Jesus was informed of Lazarus’ illness two days before
Lazarus died and he said “This sickness is not unto death,
but for the glory of God…” (John 11:4) Jesus waited TWO days
before going to His friend and by then His friend was dead.
This could most definitely be classified as a “when things
are really bad” but God used the situation to glorify
Himself and it resulted in many people believing.
So no
matter how bad things look right now the bad situation makes
up the first ingredient for your miracle. Try looking at it
this way, the worse it is the more eligible you are for a
miracle because it will bring greater glory to God.
The
second ingredients are sometimes harder to find for some
than others. They are: blind faith, trust in God, humility,
dedication and patience. It all starts with a mustard seed
of faith. Which is actually the easiest ingredient to get,
you need only look up and ask for it and The Lord will plant
the seed of faith deep in your heart so that when the other
ingredients are added, your miracle will start to take form.
The
key to faith is to simply believe. Blind faith is tough
especially when you don’t know what it is you believe in,
but by searching the miracle cookbook, the Bible, you will
find all you need to know about having faith. Trust in God
ties into faith because, again you have to believe in what
you can’t see with your eyes but can feel in your heart.
That little ray of hope that keeps peeking through, that’s
faith and when you feel it, it is confirmation from the
Great Chef in the sky that you are on the right road for
your miracle. Faith is the substance of things hoped for
(Hebrews 11:1).
Humility is a tough one for many of us, it means humbling
yourself to what God is teaching and showing you. How can
you expect Him to bless you with a miracle if it won’t be
appreciated, maintained or understood? Humility causes us to
take a look at ourselves from the inside out and it provokes
us to open our hearts to His guidance about what we need to
change about us in order to be a regular recipient of
miracles. Dedication to learning this lesson is paramount in
receiving a miracle. You either want a quick fix to your
problem or you truly want a life where miracles aren’t taken
for granted. That life involves dedication to prayer, which
is communicating with God, dedication to listening which is
meditating on God’s word, and dedication to learning what
His will is for you by reading the Bible regularly.
The
final ingredient is patience. While the other ingredients
are being added and marinating, you need to be still and let
God work His masterpiece. If you focus on Him and not on the
situation needing the miracle your wait will become much
easier and before you know it, you’ll have your answer.
You’ll also be living a whole new life with whole new ideals
and beliefs.
A
miracle can’t be miraculous unless God is taking a situation
that man can do nothing with and producing divine results.
If you’re feeling like giving up because your situation
looks hopeless you can rejoice knowing that your hopeless
situation is God’s specialty. You have the ingredients for a
miracle, will you Let Him prepare it for you now?
