Home » Posts tagged 'MIRACLE'
Tag Archives: MIRACLE
THE FAITH OF THE UNFLAPPABLE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 18, 2025 – When Jesus says that God knows us so intimately, he even knows the number of hairs on our head, Jesus does in fact mean that God knows the actual number of hairs on our head. It wasn’t a figure of speech. God knows everything there is to know about us, and he knows it in real time, not as something written about in a report that he’ll skim through when he gets a minute. God knows everything about us, inside and out, here and now, and he also knows everything about us as we were and as we are yet to be.
If you genuinely grasp the magnitude of the miracle of God’s knowledge of us, then you’ll get what Jesus means when he says: “Where is your faith?” Because you’ll understand the pervasiveness of God’s presence with you, whether you’re awake or asleep, whether you’re aware of him or not. And in understanding that God is so pervasively with you and in you and all around you, you’ll have zero reason to be afraid or intimidated or even slightly worried about anything at any time. You’ll be totally unflappable, like Jesus was. In perpetually walking with God and talking with God (“pray without ceasing!”), and by consulting him on everything and following his lead, your only concern will be doing God’s will. That is your full job description – do God’s will. Everything in your life falls within it.
If God knows us so miraculously that he even knows the exact number of hairs on our head, then we can fully trust his absolute power. We can trust him in everything and all the time, regardless of what’s in front of us (especially regardless of what’s in front of us). When the boat was rocking and heaving in the storm, Jesus slept soundly. The disciples were terrified and rushed to wake Jesus, begging him to save them. But his only words upon waking and seeing their terrified faces were “Where is your faith?”, and then he calmly stilled the storm.
We’ve all had our moments of terror like the disciples, forgetting God’s miraculous reach, and in so doing revealing our lack of faith. There is not one instance in the gospels where Jesus displays so much as a minor degree of fear or intimidation. Even when his entire village is chasing him in a rage, vowing to stone him to death, Jesus calmly walks through the midst of them and escapes unscathed. How was he able to do that? The same way we’re able to do it: By consulting God in real time and doing precisely as God advises. In so doing, Jesus stayed deep within God’s miraculous reach and protection, a protection that we, as God’s children, also have but which we sometimes forget we have and so put ourselves under unnecessary stress and strain.
We have no reason to feel any stress or strain as children of God. If we’re stressed and strained, it’s an indicator that we’re not following God’s lead, which likely means that we’re not consulting God. Trials we’ll have, and tests galore (they’ll continue non-stop to our final breath, like with Jesus), but these situations are not meant to stress or strain us. They’re meant to teach us and guide us and in some cases deliver our due punishment. There’s no avoiding them and so we need to accept and endure them. But if we trust God and have the unflappable faith of Jesus (which is within our grasp as born-again believers), we’ll remain calm no matter what’s thrown at us.
Now here comes the part that’s likely going to ruffle a few feathers. Women, being more emotion-driven than men, have a more difficult time remaining calm and unflappable than men. I’m not making excuses here; just stating a fact. And because women are more emotion-driven than men, they’re more prone to experiencing stress and strain than men. They’re also more biased, more easily triggered, more easily offended, and more likely to react against the offense to their detriment.
Does this mean that women get a pass on remaining calm under pressure? Not at all. It just means that women, being emotionally hardwired differently than men, need to remember always and in every circumstance to put themselves fully into God’s hands, especially when they feel their emotions rise. If women put themselves fully into God’s hands, they won’t fall into the emotion-triggered traps set for them by the devil and permitted by God. Men, too, need to remember to put themselves fully into God’s hands, but women even more so, because of their emotions.
You can lay your feathers back down now, ladies. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
And speaking of feathers, God knows all of ours thoroughly, just like he knows all our hairs and what triggers us and what tickles us. There’s nothing about us that God doesn’t know, and yet he still loves us with a fervour and singlemindedness that we cannot fathom, being incapable of such love ourselves. And there, more than anything else, is the reason why we, too, can be unflappable like Jesus – because of God’s perfect love for us. He not only knows everything about us and is always with us, perfectly guiding and perfectly protecting us, he’s with us in love – he’s in love with us – and so wants only the best outcome for us, always and forever.
I’d be lying if I said I’ve achieved the faith and unflappableness of Jesus, but I’m aiming for it. I’m aiming for it knowing that God has made it well within my reach, as long as I do his will.
STAR
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, December 31, 2023 – You would have thought that Herod and the chief priests would have been overjoyed to hear about the star. You would have thought they’d have been eager to tag along with the wise men and outdo even the magi in the pomp and splendour of their gifts. You would have thought nothing would have stopped them from shouting the good news from the rooftops all across Jerusalem and beyond.
You would have thought.
But scripture relays an entirely different response to the revelation of the King’s birth. Instead of inspiring joy, the news “troubled” the political and religious elite. Instead of a giddy and mad rush to prepare a celebration, Herod huddled with his advisors, plotting what to do with the child. Surely the magi must have wondered at Herod’s strained inquiries and tight-lipped smile. Surely his odd behavior and that of the temple elders must have dominated discussion during the final leg of the wise men’s journey. A subdued reception to the wondrous news was the last thing the magi had expected, considering that they themselves had dropped everything to follow the star.
So when God warned them in a dream not to let Herod know they’d found Jesus and to return home another way, the magi were likely only too happy to give Herod the slip.
Jerusalem at the time of the star was under Roman occupation. The majority of the people in Israel and Judea languished under military rule, but the powers-that-be flourished. They had found it to their advantage to forge both official and unofficial alliances with the Romans, and a prophesied King thrown into the mix would have threatened their dealmaking. Herod had no qualms about killing the King of the Jews, if by killing him the status quo could be maintained.
Recall that the second temple had been lavishly expanded under the direction of Herod and even dubbed “Herod’s temple”, his input was so extensive. Yet the same man who had funnelled immense resources into the glorification of the temple was hellbent on destroying the very King that gave the temple its glory.
How could this be?
The cornerstone for the second temple had been laid around 500 B.C. under humbling circumstances. Only the faithful were permitted to return to Jerusalem after its near total destruction by the Babylonians 70 years earlier. Only the faithful were permitted to work on the construction of the temple, and only by free will, not by coercion or obligation. The second temple, at its inception, was a far cry in splendor from Solomon’s temple, but it rose from the ashes as a labour of love and penitence. All those who worked on it did so with God’s Spirit burning in their hearts and guiding their hands. They would have swiftly dealt with anyone who dared think of killing God’s prophesied Messiah.
What happened in those intervening 500 years to create such a sea-change in the children of Israel? What spiritual evolutionary process turned the godly builders of the second temple into the unholy forgers of a Judeo-Roman alliance? Is it perhaps the same evolutionary process that turned the early Protestant martyrs into today’s neo-Sodomites?
The heavenly light that guided the magi has since become known as the Star of Bethlehem. It has never been definitively identified and never will be, as it was a one-off phenomenon, a supernatural event. Its coming mirrored the supernatural coming of God’s Messiah, also a one-off supernatural event. These were miracles that will find no explanation in scientific inquiry, just as the parting of the Red Sea will find no explanation or the manna that appeared in the wilderness will find no explanation. Miracles are beyond human understanding for a reason.
The workings of evil in an individual soul or across an entire nation are not a miracle. Supernatural, yes; miraculous, no. There is no light in these dark workings, only a step-by-step descent into the lake of fire. When you ask how the saintly and the godly can become the evil and the depraved, the answer is the spiritual evolutionary process. It unfolds over generations as a matter of course, and the only way to stop it is divine intervention.
The Star of Bethlehem and the Messiah it heralded were divine intervention. Spiritual rebirth is also divine intervention. None of these phenomena can be explained by scientific inquiry. We who are genuinely reborn are like the Star of Bethlehem or the coming of the Messiah. And like them, we too need to shine in the darkness to guide whomsoever will to the Light.
Scripture tells us that Jesus’ second coming will be like lightning flashing from horizon to horizon. Not a supernatural star this time, but supernatural lightning. This is how we’ll know it’s Jesus returning in glory, when the miraculous light penetrates and exposes everything and everyone simultaneously. Like the Star and our rebirth, the lightning that appears at Jesus’ return will be beyond scientific explanation. It will illuminate everyone in every conceivable way, giving them instantaneous and certain knowledge of the state of their soul. No-one will be able to hide from its divine brilliance. It will find them out, no matter where they are.
The magi dropped everything to follow the Star and it led them to Jesus. Our rebirth likewise led us to Jesus and keeps us following him day by day. In so doing, we deepen our commitment day by day and avoid the spiritual evolutionary process that turned humble and godly temple builders into Herods and Judases. We dare not even for a second turn our back on the Light. We dare not make any deals with devils. We know our God and are known of him, and our labours in the name of Jesus are free-willing and without charge.
The Star was both a herald of the One True Light and a guide to it.
May we reborn believers be the same.
GETTING THE MIRACLE YOU NEED
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 18, 2022 – So many people praying for a miracle, praying for healing, praying for the cancer to go away or at least to go into remission. Praying for relationships to be healed. Praying for enough money to pay the bills or maybe a lottery win.
Praying for a miracle.
And then, when the requested miracle doesn’t come, so many people crying to God: “Why are you doing this to me? What have I done to deserve this?” and cursing him, or worse, swearing he doesn’t exist.
But God answers all prayers, including those made in the agony of the soul. You might not get the exact miracle you requested, but you will get a miracle. God will intervene, if you ask him to. Through divine intervention, he’ll give you the strength to endure whatever it is you’re going through, whatever it is you’ve brought on yourself, whatever it is you have to suffer. There’s your miracle. The miracle is in the power of your strength to endure, which you wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t prayed to God for help. Your strength to endure is God working through you. There’s your miracle.
People ask me if God works miracles in my life, and I say yes, every minute of every day. Every minute of every day God works through me. Every day I witness his intervention, because I constantly ask for it and thank God for it. Every day I see his miracles.
I may not get precisely what I ask for, but I do get what God knows I need to stay on the path Home. And sometimes he’ll throw in a little something extra, something he knows I’ll know could only have come from him, just to make me laugh. God loves it when he can make us laugh.
The night before Jesus was crucified, he prayed to God that there would be some other way for him to complete his mission without his having to be crucified. He didn’t want to be crucified. He didn’t want the agony and very public humiliation of that kind of death. But note that he qualified his prayer with “not what I want, but you want”, and he prayed the same prayer three times in succession, showing us that we need to be persistent in prayer, so that God knows we mean what we say and that it’s not just a passing fancy.
Jesus didn’t get specifically what he asked for; he was crucified. But immediately after Jesus prayed, God sent an angel to strengthen him. There was the miracle he needed – not the miracle he wanted, but the miracle he needed to get through what he had to get through in order to get Home.
Our strength to endure whatever we have to endure is not our strength; it doesn’t come from us, no matter how strong we think we are. That strength to endure comes from God. That is divine intervention. That is a miracle.
So whatever you pray for, pray like Jesus – qualify your prayers by telling God not to give you what you want, but what he wants. God loves you even more than you love yourself, so if you give God leave to give you what he wants rather than what you want, you’ll always come out ahead. Yes, Jesus had to deal with being crucified, but he was crucified while also strengthened by God to endure it. Imagine how much worse it would have been for Jesus without God’s help.
I know how bad things can get when you don’t pray for God’s help, because I lived the first 36 years of my life on Earth without praying to God, and I stumbled from one disaster to the next. I was constantly an emotional basket case, constantly flailing in pain, and constantly casting blame like an AK-47 spraying bullets.
But on that day when I finally called out for help, not even knowing who I was calling to, God heard, and he answered immediately. He offered me the option of choosing to forgive or choosing not to forgive, showing me the outcome of each choice and shining a bright light on the choice to forgive as the right one and the one that would stop all my pain. Thank God I cried out for help that day. Thank God God heard me, and thank God he answered.
God always hears our prayers and always answers them. Always. There is never a time when he doesn’t. When you give God leave to intervene, he might not do exactly what you want him to do, but he will do what’s best for you. That’s his job description as your Heavenly Father.
So pray to God like Jesus prayed – not demanding, not expecting, not threatening or negotiating, but humbly giving into God’s will for you, whatever that may be.
That’s how you pray, and that’s how you get the miracle you need.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 