By Betty Slade | PREVIEW columnist
What’s with miracles? Because God loves us, miracles happen. We talk about a highly spiritual experience we can’t explain. Most often, God goes against the law of nature or man’s reasoning to change the course a person is on. Miracles aren’t meant to be heady, showy or to brag about ourselves, but to get our attention on God. God shows his power and love every day in simple ways. Those are miracles. Sometimes we see them and sometimes we don’t.
Because He loves us, he’s promised to take care of us and deliver us from places we can’t deliver ourselves. We’re too deep in the mire, too deep in a dark place or too deep in our own minds. Miracles happen at times when something is wrong and somebody needs to change their mind and heart. Only a divine touch from God can make it happen.
Sometimes these miracles bring a new revelation about God. Higher than my thinking, it’s His way of giving me new understanding. At times I’ve been unable to see the next step. God will speak in a quiet voice. He’s reached into my little world and insisted I change. If I don’t hear him, he talks a little louder. If I still can’t hear him, he uses a megaphone and shakes the earth under my feet. I finally hear him and that’s the miracle. That’s his way of telling me he’s taking care of me.
The dictionary explains a miracle as an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. Such effects or events are considered works of God.
Yes, it’s a divine thing to get someone to turn around and go the other way. It takes a surrendered heart toward God. It takes a God touch to break the independence and pride of man.
God questioned Job and asked, “Can you disperse the rage of your wrath, can you look on everyone who is proud and humble him? Can you tread down the wicked in their place ...? No.”
God answered his own question. “If you can, then I will also confess to you that your own right hand can save you.” — Job 40:11-14 (NKJV).
Psalm 111:3 reads, “Each miracle demonstrates his eternal perfection.”
I have found trying to humble a proud man only makes him angrier and prouder, louder and more confrontational. It takes a touch from God for a heart to surrender and admit he is helpless and needs God to perfect him.
Miracles come in order to change our direction, our thinking, our perceptions. Miracles come to get us back on track, to bring us to His eternal perfection.
I’ve had some knock-down miracles come into my life. Miracles that didn’t feel so good even though they were a touch from God. Sometimes those miracles interrupt our lives in a way we can’t go back to the way we were. Afterward, when we are clear-sighted, we understand we needed that touch.
I remember when my friend called. She lived in LA at the time and wanted to talk. Her 16-year-old daughter had left home and gone to the streets. My friend’s family was in disarray. She and her husband were fighting and divorce seemed the only way out. Their marriage was a total disaster. A rebellious daughter brought even more stress.
Then she called to tell me her daughter was being used by a handler and making money on the streets. A few weeks later, she called to tell me, “My daughter is pregnant. I found her on my doorsteps. She wants to come home.”
My friend sobbed, “Now this. How can it get any worse?”
I told her what she didn’t want to hear. “This is a miracle. This pregnancy is getting her off the streets and bringing her home. I hope you don’t take this into your own hands and convince her to get an abortion. Put it in God’s hands and let him do it His way. He knows what he’s doing.”
Easy for me to say; I wouldn’t be raising this child. My friend and her husband would have to. Their hearts turned to God out of desperation. That was the miracle. My words were not consoling, but that unplanned pregnancy brought the whole family back to a place where they could survive.
This God-given interruption was what this family needed. They humbled themselves and prayed. They got their eyes off each other. They put down their weapons. They softened toward each other and took care of their daughter. That meant raising her baby, too.
Today, I’ve seen this 30-year-old baby grow up into a beautiful woman. Does she know she was the miracle that this family needed? Probably not. But my friend does. God touched her heart. Only God could have saved this family by interrupting something so wrong in order to make it so right.
Final brushstroke: I’ve seen many miracles in my lifetime. They’ve come in loud clashes, quiet words and inconvenient moments, but they have been designed to get my attention to see God. Because He loves me. God is perfecting me for an eternal entrance back to Him.
Send your comment to bettyslade@centurytel.net.
Views expressed do not necessarily represent those of The SUN.
