Recently one of the students I mentor asked me did I believe in miracles. For a moment I stood spellbound because at the age of twelve, I too, once hedged on the belief whether miracles actually existed...and here it is more than 40 years later I’m faced with dealing with a subject that I’ve since learned more about. I sat the youngster down and we had an earnest heart to heart talk about it. I first had to define the word ‘miracle’ to him in a way where it would be understood without adding exaggeration to truth. After talking to my young charge, I asked myself -- did I really give him the right defination of how I interpret miracles? It only made me more inquisitive and prone for more research. Just what IS a miracle? Do the average person really believe that miracles are apropos...and most notably, does the adage that ‘God works in mysterious ways’ are akin to the essence of miracles in its simplest form?
According to some people, a sudden stroke of good luck for something deemed unattainable, mesmerizing sunrises and sunsets, or a newborn baby is a miracle. While all of the aforementioned are unquestionably marvelous in context, they in my opinion are not relative to miracles in the true definition of the word. To wit: Let’s look at it academically per what the dictionary defines a miracle as. It specifies a miracle as “an extraordinary occurrence that surpasses all known human powers or natural forces and is ascribed to a divine or supernatural cause.” WOW! Can this be refuted? Believe or not, there are some who still feel that miracles doesn’t exist at all. The purpose of this short soliloquy is to show the legitimacy of Jesus’ miracles and the evidence of his Messiahship and divine authority over people, nature, and even death itself. He informed his disciples that they would do greater signs and 'miraculous' things than they had seen Him do (John 14:12).
According to some people, a sudden stroke of good luck for something deemed unattainable, mesmerizing sunrises and sunsets, or a newborn baby is a miracle. While all of the aforementioned are unquestionably marvelous in context, they in my opinion are not relative to miracles in the true definition of the word. To wit: Let’s look at it academically per what the dictionary defines a miracle as. It specifies a miracle as “an extraordinary occurrence that surpasses all known human powers or natural forces and is ascribed to a divine or supernatural cause.” WOW! Can this be refuted? Believe or not, there are some who still feel that miracles doesn’t exist at all. The purpose of this short soliloquy is to show the legitimacy of Jesus’ miracles and the evidence of his Messiahship and divine authority over people, nature, and even death itself. He informed his disciples that they would do greater signs and 'miraculous' things than they had seen Him do (John 14:12).
New Jerusalem is not further away today than when Jesus walked among us. There’s no shorter distance to His Divinity, nor is He less willing to take notice to our human necessities than He did 2000 years ago when He administered to a woman at a well, a rejected leper, or a desperate mourner. To that effect, the requirements on us are less today than it was to those in the past. It’s essential that we remain faithful, live quality lives, and be willing to tell others of the Good News. The flip of this rests on the principle that miracles are always timely for a purpose, but should not be seen as a cure-all for apostasy and anything else reverent to doing all things righteous. God’s provision is never given in order to let us rest upon it. Why is this you may ask? Because we need to depend on Him as each new trial and tribulation manifests. After all, Satan performs miracles too and known to usurp God’s people leading them astray.
In closing, I’m a firm believer that the Bible is authentic in how Jesus walked and in what manner He made His presence known. Moreover, we live in a fallen world where seeing is not always believing and where effective change is not always rewarded with a habitual sense of logic for truth. Therefore, there has to be something that would allow deductive reasoning and common sense for people to see things in a different light. If God took all things relative to dependency on Him for faith, suffering or any other reason for difference, we would follow Him for comfort and convenience and not out of love and devotion. In this analogy, miracles and the parables He evoked throughout, were done to illustrate just how much of a Light He was for illuminating value. Check them out for yourself. Of the thirty-five recorded miracles of Jesus, twenty-three were of healing; three times there were those to raise the dead; twice there was a miracle of a large catch of fish; and on four other occasions He: 1) stilled storms; 2) walked on water; 3) cursed a fig tree; and, 4) provided temple tax money. What more is needed to give acknowledgeable presence of miracles! But people often are oblivious of Providence. When you rid yourself of stubbornness, look closer...you may be surprised by abundant evidence of God’s work, and loving intervention in your life. Miracles happen all the time, but we must make the Word of God be the basis of our faith!
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