Miracles

If there is one consistent conclusion one can draw from the Holy book, from Genesis to Apocalypse, it could possibly be the undeniable presence of God in our lives.

Take it from me. God is never resting, never distracted, never uninterested, never absent from your path - even when you may feel He has walked out on you and the pressures of life conspire with the devil himself to burn your entire house down. Even then I am telling you that the Creator of all has His eyes on you. Through every process. Through every challenge. Through every tear. Through every disappointment. God looks at you in a way no one else can. And He can do that because unlike everyone else, He has thought of you long before you even became flesh and blood. He imaged you. He described you to the angels. He has loved you from moment one.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." - Jeremiah 1:5

Sure, you can say. Words are cheap and my life is a chaos. God doesn’t care, if He even exists. But what if I told you that you have never been closer to God than in those moments when you most believe He isn’t even real? What if I said to you that God draws His mighty strength from the ashes of your life, and works relentlessly to shape them up into new beginnings for you? What if you knew that God had already calculated the risk and had chosen you anyway? What if you thought of you the way He thinks of you, if even for a second?

“But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9

The difference between God and you is that God believes in you even when you don’t believe in yourself, where you can’t bring yourself to believe in God because you can’t believe in you. If you did, you would know that your troubles are mere rehearsals in God’s playbook. You would know that you are not conditioned by what makes you small but what makes you great - and God made you a giant, as His child, as His perfect plan, as His image on Earth.

I believe in myself just fine, you may say. Then explain to me why you can’t seem to have enough, or be enough, or know enough, or want enough, or love enough? The compulsive need us lost humans on this fallen world have without God’s guidance is always explained by that which we try to over compensate for: more is never enough. If you believe in yourself the way you think you do, why do you obsess over those clothes, or that job, or that house, or that bank account? Why do you keep trying to be more all the time? Who are you trying to impress? I can tell you who your soul is trying to connect with though: God.

All I know is what God has taught me, which He keeps insisting on in own my life every time I trip with my own self pity: do you believe I can do this for you or do you not? And if you do, will you let go of that rail you are holding on and allow me to guide you out of this maze that your life has become?

There are broken and dead bones everywhere in our lives. We all have them, we all know them, we all see them. We all have reached a point in our lives where we may believe there is no God in Heaven or Earth that can possibly make those bones come back to life. Not ever. And then God makes something extraordinary happen. A ripple starts perhaps a million miles away from your situation, and then hope springs forward and moves and pushes ripple after ripple until it reaches you. Miracles.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a miracle as specifically 3 different things:

1 - An extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs (healing miracles described in the Gospels)

2 - An extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment (the bridge is a miracle of engineering).

3 - Christian Science : a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law.

When you get down to it, faith describes miracles as God’s favor in our lives. They are God’s absolute power at work. Against all odds, against any imaginable bet, against reason or common sense, God puts His foot down and the Sun stands still to shift impossible probabilities into active possibilities. Call it what you will, but I will call it a miracle. And they have been happening for as long as God has been - and He is eternal.

12 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on[a] its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!

- Joshua 10:12-14 (NIV)

What battle are you in the trenches for? How long has this been going on? Are you ready for more?

One of my most favorite passages of the Bible is found in the book of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, born in Jerusalem around 622 BCE. I believe many of us can relate to it, because we have all lost dreams, friends, trust, peace...and have believed to never be able to feel whole again. But then...God. The breath of life, the ultimate miracle.

“37 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath[a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. 11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’” “ - Ezekiel 37 (NIV)

The evidence of God’s presence in your life outweighs the notion that tells you that He is not there. From one imperfect person to another: hang in there. Let Him do what He does best: be God.