"You can't see miracles unless there is an impossible situation you can't figure out." - Priscilla Shirer
Speaker, actress and best selling author Priscilla Shirer tells the story of a woman who has a ministry to persons involved with sex trafficking in Europe. The resources the police used to carry out raids were dried up, which brought the operations to a halt.
This lady along with the rest of her team decided to pray. Their prayer was as gutsy as the vision of her ministry. They prayed that God would convict the John's; that instead of going through with their sexual actions, they would be the ones rescuing the girls.
The next day they got a call from the police that while with one of the girls that night a man, for some strange reason, asked the young lady for her papers. In doing so he discovered that she was there against her will. He couldn't go through with his initial plans and decided to take her from the brothel and drop her off at the police station. It was a miracle.
Miracles
Miracles - the amazing, unexplainable moving of our Heavenly Father. When they happen we are excited. We love when He answers with His powerful, "above all we could think" kind of interventions. The dilemma that we face though is that in order to experience a miracle, we have to be in a predicament that we can't fix on our own.
We have to be like Gideon going into a battle with the ratio of 450:1 - our team to the opposing army. Or, like Moses, going against an empire with a stick and an eloquent wing man. Or like me in a foreign country with a lost debit card and no means of getting another one that I can see (my bank doesn't mail replacement cards).
To be a miracle
The difficult, terrifying, "what is going to happen next" moment is necessary for the solution to be a miracle.
Priscilla Shorter quotes the aforementioned woman saying that "we pray that God will do a miracle and in the same breath we pray that God keeps us from any situation that a miracle would require". We want to see the miracle but we don't want to be in the hard time to get the miracle.
But it's in this place that we see God. It's when the words we read on a page or heard in a sermon materializes in front of us. In this place we can say like Job, "I heard about You, but now I see you." (Job chapter 42 verse 5)
The biggest miracle of all - salvation - required Jesus to go through the toughest challenge. If he had taken 'an out', this miraculous beauty that we call the gospel would be far from our reach.
The tough moments, though scary, painful and trying, can result in marvelous experiences of God's power and grace when we allow ourselves to be placed in them. It's those moments that allow us to be a part of some of the grandest moments in God's timeline.
Recently I did a study on the 37th Psalm. In the beginning of the chapter, David challenges the reader to "fret not". This statement is repeated several times in the chapter.
Scholars say the aim of this Psalm is to admonish the believer to rightly understand God's Providence and how we are to surrender to it. We "fret not" because God's thoughts, affections and hand are directed toward His children.
Therefore, because God's Providence is at work, David then gives us the better option: while we wait for the miracle we are encouraged to,
'Trust in the Lord...' vs3
'Delight [ourselves] in the Lord...' vs 4
'Be still before the Lord...' vs5
'Wait patiently for Him...' vs7
Something else too!
While taking a break from this article I scrolled down my wall on Facebook (because so much inspiration is there. Lol). One of those 'here's a memory' things was on my wall. It was a post I wrote six years ago, and it said,
"A miracle wouldn't be a miracle if the circumstances didn't look impossible, because a miracle by definition is an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs...so go ahead Lord."
I must have had an 'I need a miracle' moment or some sort of divine revelation then, but what was true six years ago, holds true now. So, with the same gusto I say "go ahead Lord, place me in a position where the miracle can happen, then do that miracle". I encourage you to do the same in 2017.
Stacy-Ann Smith - is doing missions in Indonesia and is a child therapist. She is involved with children's ministry and working girls has a heart to teach them the ways of the Lord.
Stacy-Ann Smith's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/stacy-ann-smith.html