The Pain of a Miracle

I was wondering if I’ve been asking God for miracles and blessings in my life without understanding what’s involved. Lately, I’ve noticed an upward trend of pastors and Christians talking about the blessings and miracles God is going to work in people’s lives, which is always emotionally thrilling – he’s just dropping miracles and blessings all over the place, apparently. And I recently heard on the radio a prominent radio personality say that the way you get your blessing is pray for bigger blessings (the example used was don’t just pay for another house, pray for a bigger, better house – don’t limit God), move things out of the way for your blessing (the new wine in old wine skins philosophy), and be patient. Now, I’m not a scholar or theologian, and I’m certainly not going say that what the radio personality said is completely false (a lot of that is true in context), but I do think our understanding of how God works out our blessings and miracles is sort of flawed. The most essential thing this radio personality forgot to emphasize, and something I’ve come to realize on my walk with God, is the importance of faith and obedience to the will of God in blessings and miracles.

I think it’s a good idea for us to understand the difference between miracles and blessings, because I know I’ve been guilty of interchanging the two and they are really very different. A blessing is a sustained meting out of God’s provision in an area of my life that will either prevent crisis or keep me during a crisis. A miracle is God supernaturally intervening in the laws of this world to get me out of crisis. Blessings are continuous, a miracle is a one-time deal. Now, here is something I’ve noticed – blessings come from the continuous faith and obedience of a child of God to his will in their life, not just because I want something bigger from God, and blessings are given in order for God’s children to then go and bless others, not to accrue earthly things or be successful in our own right. Miracles, from what I’ve seen in the Bible, can affect both to the believer and non-believer, but tend to accomplish different goals than the blessing. Miracles tend to be to 1) show God’s supernatural power over a situation for the purpose of turning hearts to him and/or deterring the enemy (think the parting of the Red Sea); 2) to get someone (usually a believer) out of a no-resort crisis. When directed to a believer, miracles always seem to require just as much, if not more, faith and obedience than the blessing, and even sacrifice.

1 Kings 17:7-16 shares the story of Elijah being told by God to go be cared for by a widow during a horrible famine in the land. Elijah comes upon this woman at her last – when he asks her for something to eat, she tells him that she only has a little meal and oil left that she’s going to use to make a little cake for herself and her son, and then die (v. 13). Does Elijah say, “Oh, man, I’m so sorry, you go ahead and eat that, I’ll just leave”? No, his response is “Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son” (v. 14). When she goes and does what Elijah asks, then the meal and oil flow for days!

A similar story happens in the New Testament when Jesus feeds the 5000 – not including women and children, so it was probably at least 8000 or more people (Matt. 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; John 6:1-14). These people are hungry and tired and the only one who seems to have been prepared is a little boy with a box lunch of fish and bread. The disciples are all freaking out because they don’t know how to feed so many people under their charge and offer only this kid’s lunch as an option. We don’t get to see the child’s reaction, but I imagine it would be a crisis to you if your meal for the evening was taken away because someone else thought it might feed thousands of other people. But all we know is that he gave it up, and because he responded, Jesus feeds a crowd of people.

Why would our loving, faithful God, who is more than capable of just making the meal and oil flow without Elijah’s involvement at all, ask such a difficult sacrifice of that dying widow? To make her assess her priorities and see if her trust is in what she sees in front of her or what she knows about God.

Here’s a fact about God – he doesn’t share glory or honor or our attention. He’s jealous about being prioritized and for good reason! He created the heavens and the earth, you and me, is all powerful, all mighty, all knowing, everywhere in space and time, holy and righteous, and holds existence together with the power and integrity of his very word. And he gave up his Son as a ransom for a world that doesn’t deserve that kind of love. So of course he’s going to make us choose between what we’re holding onto on earth and him. And to us, it’s sometimes painful and feels unfair, especially during a crisis when we’re in desperate need of him to do a miracle. I imagine that woman was so heartbroken to hear Elijah ask for the last little cake that she and her son were going to eat. “I thought you came to help, but it looks like you’re here to hasten death!” might have been a thought. I imagine that little boy was pretty sad when the disciples offered up his lunch to Jesus in what to him must have seemed a silly attempt of feeding 5000 plus people. “I thought you were going to speak life into my life, but you’re just asking me to give something up!” might have been a thought.

In those moments when we ask God to move miraculously in a situation and he instead asks us to do something that seems like it might literally or figuratively kill us, we can be tempted to think that perhaps it’s the devil talking and ignore the voice of the Holy Spirit. We like it when God just moves things out of our way or into our way according to our plans and hopes and dreams. We don’t mind so much doing the things God expects of us (faithfully go to church, read our Bible, spend extra time in prayer) and get our blessings. But in emergencies, we need immediate assistance, and we want God to act right away. But God isn’t blind or stupid and if he perceives in us that our priorities aren’t all on him, he may ask for our obedience in a critical moment that could make or break our miracle later. God is not an ATM that he gives out miracles when you ask because you asked. He is a holy God that asks for faith and obedience at ALL times, even when it’s inconvenient to you. Will he honor obedience and bless it? Certainly, although don’t expect blessings to always be earthly things – sometimes your blessing is the joy and strength of having passed this trial so that you can share it with others and be more prepared for the next one. But our obedience should not be motivated by what we think we might get from God if we obey him. It should be motivated by the fact that he is our Father in heaven, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who saved us from eternal separation, and from the abundance of our love, through the working of the Holy Spirit, we seek to do HIS will on this earth, not our own. If he blesses, it’s because that blessing will come in useful for you to use for the kingdom.

Is it easy to give up something for God? No, especially when what we have isn’t necessarily bad – it could be a good relationship, a great job promotion, a volunteer opportunity you really enjoy, or perhaps more from your paycheck to ministry. I struggled with that this year in giving up a ministry opportunity that meant a lot to me but ultimately God showed me that it had become the priority and not Him. And it hurts to walk away, to lower your pride and humble yourself before a bad boss, a bad spouse, to take the pay cut, to let someone walk out of your life when you want them to stay but God needs them to go. In those times, it’s hard to see the goodness of God and the long-term plan. I like knowing the plan. If I know ahead of time that three months later, my taking that pay cut will result in my keeping my job while everyone else gets the boot, or that the person I really cared about turned out to be completely wrong or I was completely wrong for them, or that by humbling myself before the nastiness of my spouse or boss, they would start asking questions and find Jesus, then I wouldn’t be so hesitant to fall in line.

But God doesn’t work by giving us the whole picture. He simply says, “Obey,” and expects obedience.

Obedience is trust, trust that my God is a good God who works things out for my good when I show obedience. I bet at the time the disciples were probably sweating bullets wondering how there were going to feed everyone. But in addition to that kid, they also took a step of faith and did as Jesus asked, and saw a miracle unfold right before their eyes. That widow was probably the same, fearful as to the Elijah’s request. But she stepped out in faith, and watched a miracle unfold in her house when the oil just kept flowing.

Only God knows how he will answer your step of faith, with a blessing through daily faith and obedience or with a miracle in a critical act of obedience. But I’ve found that if I take my step expecting only that God will be present and that he that started this work will be faithful to complete it (Philippians 1:6), then I’m always blown away at the outcome. God always works in such a way that, when you look back at the situation and where you are now, you can only say, “That was God!”