Hold on to Your Miracle
Have you ever seen a miracle? Have you witnessed a miracle either in your own life or in the life of another? It can be anything: A life altering event that couldn’t have happened in the natural, or a coincidence that you were certain was not, or even the miracle of perfection in the tiny flower we call the Virginia spring beauty.
First, let’s define what a miracle is. The most common definition of a miracle is “an event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, and it therefore considered the work of a divine agency.” Other definitions water it down to “a highly improbable event, which brings pleasant consequences.” Followed by an even less thrilling definition of an “amazing achievement.” Look at the progression of those three definitions. What do you see? I see a methodic retreat from anything related to God to the point where He is completely taken out of the picture, a retreat that ends with a glorification of SELF. Do you see it?
The miracles we experience, when we tell them to a skeptical and an unbelieving culture, are unmercifully stolen from us. Chance meetings with people who are on our hearts are passed off as coincidence. Unexplained healings become mistakes made at the hospital. A time saving parking space is random luck. The perfection seen in creation is called “evolution.”
Let me tell you a story, the one that put this writing on my heart. My son suffered a head injury in 2021. At the hospital he was conscious and talking to me. The cat-scan revealed a skull fracture and blood on his brain. As time passed, he stopped talking, he stared blankly at the ceiling, and his hands were frozen in the air. I asked the doctor what was wrong with him. He said there is fluid on his brain and his brain is swelling, his condition is deteriorating, and he needs to get to surgery immediately. My wife and I prayed. We prayed to God, declaring that He is the Creator and Healer. We asked God to intervene and to back the fluid off his brain and to take away the swelling. We asked Him to restore our son, completely. As I drove alone to St. Louis the report from the hospital when the helicopter landed was that our son was in surgery, and the first step was to see if there was any swelling or fluid on the brain. If there was, they would have to stabilize him and wait for the swelling to go down, this could take days. If there wasn’t then they would perform the surgery immediately. We prayed the same prayer. “You, God, are the Creator, and the Healer. You can reverse the fluids and the swelling. We love and praise You, God. Our faith is in You.” In the natural the surgery would be postponed until the fluids were drained away and the swelling went down, but we don’t live by the natural. We live by the spiritual. The next phone call told me they were doing the surgery now, my wife was giving her consent, there was no swelling! Amen! He is with us, right now in this situation. He is with our son, and we knew right then and there that our son would be brought through this by the mighty and loving hand of God Himself!
When I started telling this story to friends and family, I didn’t receive the soul saving response I had hoped for, even naively expected. The responses I heard were, “You can’t really see what’s going on just from a cat-scan.” “That’s why you always get a second opinion.” “The first doctor wasn’t a neuro specialist. He wouldn’t know.” I heard this so much, and I am ashamed to say, I started to believe it. Sure, the people in our church claimed it was a miracle, but I wondered if they just weren’t repeating the same words they always used in situations like this, and I wondered if the majority was right.
I struggled with this for weeks, until our son received a letter in the mail. It was from April Irons, a woman from our church. I don’t remember all April said in that letter, but at the end of it she wrote with boldness, surety, faith and simplicity, “This was a miracle!” That is when the revelation came, when God spoke. It was then that I knew the world had succeeded in softening my faith, in diluting it a little. In that moment I realized that if I was going to have this miracle then I needed to keep it, I needed to claim it and hold onto it. I needed to declare it with total faith. I needed to decide if I was going to believe it or not. From that day on I haven’t doubted the miracle that took place on the cold February night. The one where God Almighty laid His hands on my boy and personally prepared him for surgery. I repented and asked God to forgive my unbelief, I was so ashamed of myself. But remember this, every time you come through a trial of faith you come out a stronger Christian then when you went in. You come out with more heavenly knowledge, a greater realization of your need for grace, and a closer bond with your heavenly Father. Despair becomes delight, when it brings you to His feet.
Remember the Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his beloved servant in Matthew 8? Or the synagogue leader whose daughter was raised from the dead in Mark 5? How about the woman who was healed from a twelve-year illness when she touched Jesus’ cloak in the same chapter of Mark? Can you imagine anyone saying these things to them? “Your servant as sick for a long time. It is only natural he has finally recovered.” Or “Someone made a mistake; the girl was not dead after all. You should have asked a professional to look at her.” Or “What a coincidence, your twelve-year illness has vanished. Maybe when you were pushed down in that large crowd it fixed something inside you!” These are miracles performed by Jesus Christ, in real time, and I would have to assume that there were people who made these statements.
So, I encourage you, hold on to the miracles you know you have received or witnessed. The world will deny them, just like it denies Jesus Christ, just like it denies God Almighty. Remember who you are, a son or daughter of God. Remember what you battle, powers and principalities. Remember what you have, the Word of God.
Also know that by the Spirit of God you must discern what you are to share, with whom, and when. By no means are you meant to run around and tell everyone you meet about all the miracles God has done in your life. Look at Luke 2:19 and Luke 2:51, and see what Mary, the mother of Jesus, did as she witnessed the miracles of her Son’s upbringing. She kept them in her heart and pondered over them. She kept them to herself. It is good to keep these things for yourself and to yourself. If you run into the Monday morning meeting week after week and jubilantly tell your co-workers that God prepared a strategic parking space for you because you were running late, you will not be advancing the Kingdom on earth. Be humble and treasure what God has given you. Read about Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:12-19. He showed off all that God had blessed him with, and he was not considered righteous for it.
But in all seriousness about that great parking space you just scored when you were in a hurry, you need to decide if you’re going to recognize God’s hand in that or not. Many people are quick to say, “All for His glory,” but do they really mean it? Do you really mean it? We can easily give God the glory for surviving a car accident, but if you’re going to give Him “all” the glory, then He gets credit for your parking space too.
Luke 2:19
19 But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2:49-52
49 And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”
50 But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.
51 Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
Mark 10:27
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
Jeremiah 32:27
27 “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
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