Miracles

This morning I was watching a sermon from my church back in Colorado Springs about miracles, and I began to think about all of the miracles I have witnessed in life.  I believe God performs miracles ever day but often times we are blind to them or we attribute them to another source or don’t call them miracles at all.  Maybe we don’t observe miracles as they were in the Bible—when was the last time you walked through a parted river or tasted wine that used to be regular old well water?  But this doesn’t mean that God is not performing wonders in this world.  Simple things like finding an underground river of pure, clean water in a location in Kenya where there was none, or showing up in a tiny village along the Yukon River in Alaska with no place to sleep and being offered the preschool Head Start building and a key to the bathrooms and showers for free, or God giving my parents a negative income on paper so I could receive necessary financial aid to attend college.  Looking back, I can clearly see God’s miraculous work in my life and the lives of others, and sometimes I was fortunate to realize it at the time as well.

Perhaps the most awe-provoking miracle to me is when God turns a hardened heart towards him.  This is what I am privileged to bear witness to here in Mexico.  Remember Purpose, the one I believe God sent me to Mexico for?  Well, God has been working overtime in this gal’s life.  I remember my conversations with her when we first started hanging out, and I remember thinking, “This girl is SO different from me; her worldview has been shaped by whatever people tell her to be true about God, religion, our purpose in life—I don’t know if she will ever come around to Christianity.”  But my conversations with Purpose have been incredibly deep courageously bold, on both our parts.  I have been up-front from the beginning that I want to see her saved and have been rather blunt about what that looks like.  In turn, she has been open-minded and free with her questions.  I have seen great change in Purpose.  For someone who used to scoff at prayer, she has been talking to God; she didn’t (and maybe still doesn’t fully) believe that Bible is true, but she has been receptive to the passages I’ve been sharing with her.  God has given Purpose a thirst for Him, and she is responding by asking questions, borrowing my Bible, and allowing me to share what God has done in my life.  If this isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is!  And with everyone that is praying for Purpose, she hasn’t got a chance!  Oh, and I told her that too, at which she just laughed.

God may not perform wonders and signs the way we expect him to, but isn’t that part of what makes them miracles?