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Pointers along the way #313

Planning on miracles
- Jacob Ninan

When God does a miracle we see that as an extraordinary act of intervention on the natural processes that run our lives. If miracles take place every day, they will no longer be considered as miracles but as normal events. Anyone who knows the God of the Bible and believes in Him knows that God can do miracles easily--raising a stinking four day old corpse back to life is nothing for Him. But does anyone expect all corpses to be raised up, all sicknesses to be healed through prayer alone, all financial crises to be dissolved through fasting and prayer, all marital problems to be sorted out by a prophet's blessing, etc.?

The problem we have here is this. We believe in a God who can and does miracles. Shall we wait and look for miracles--foregoing all kinds of natural reasoning and planning--or we should plan ahead based on what God has taught us?

We see two types of miracles in the Bible--those which God initiated on His own, and those which He did in response to prayers. The first kind of miracles are totally unexpected, and we won't know when they will come. But based on what we know about God and His love, compassion and power, we ask God many times to do miracles for us. He obliges us sometimes, but unless He tells us specifically that He would do something special for us, we cannot presume on that. This is because God works with us in different ways to teach us new things and according to our ability to learn. If we don't take this into consideration, we might expect miracles to happen every time and not realise that this time God may want us to learn new things. Sometimes this can also be disastrous.

When the Egyptians came against Israel at the Red Sea, God wanted Israel to stand by and watch the salvation of God (Ex.14:13,14). Can we make this a rule for our lives for all time? This same God told Israel the next time to fight with the enemies, with different strategies each time. Since Moses and Joshua were in touch with God they were able to hear what God wanted them to do each time. What would have happened if every time they chose to 'believe' and just stood by waiting for God's salvation!

We like it, don't we, if we have to just stand by and watch, without having to get into any fight with the enemies? But we would never grow that way. Our spiritual muscles are to be strengthened through exercise (He.5:13,14). Every truth that God teaches us and every experience that we go through, equips us to deal with life's situations. Finally God wants us to stand strong in His grace so that we can take action (2Ti.2:1). He doesn't want us to be like dumb animals to be directed in every step, but He wants us to learn from Him, 'think' based on that, and go forward (Ps.32:8,9). We use our mind under the leading of the Spirit and expect God to do miracles (Ep.3:20).

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