There is a lot of crazy stuff in the Bible. The Red Sea parting. A talking donkey. Demons being cast out of a boy and into a herd of pigs that throw themselves off a cliff. All sorts of instantaneous healing. A boy's lunch feeding 5,000 people. Lamp oil that never runs out. A man, three days after his death, resurrecting from the dead.
If you believe that all these things happened as they are recorded, which I do, you have to be in utter awe of the supernatural events and miracles in the Bible. God was very present in these people's lives and the signs He gave them were so miraculous, it's near impossible to explain them away with anything but it coming from the hand of God.
So why doesn't God do that crazy stuff anymore?
I've heard many people ask this question. I've heard people say, "I want a sign from God like the people in the Bible got." "I wish Jesus still did miraculous healings." "I would have more faith if I saw the hand of God all over the place like those people saw."
The truth is, as Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." God isn't the one who changed. We are the ones who have changed.
Much has transpired in humanity since the time since the scriptures were written. We've gone through the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment. We now have the scientific method, Calculus and psychology. We live in an age of quantum mechanics and nano processors. The average high school graduate can tell you what a neuron is, how to do a geometric proof and can explain what molecules are made of.
God, on the other hand, hasn't changed. "...the same yesterday and today and forever..."
I'm going to postulate that all of our "advances" in technology, understanding and philosophy have clouded our view of God's hand. Not that those advances are bad, in fact, I believe that most of them indeed are the handiwork of God and are very, very good. It's just that since we tend to believe those gains were made by our own hand instead of acknowledging God's role in the events, the pride of human understanding and intelligence has firmly rooted itself in our hearts and we choose to give glory to ourselves instead of God.
Our culture believes that if you can explain something by any means other than God, then it isn't supernatural. We go to the doctor and take medicine to cure our illness. We tell ourselves that it was science that cured us and not God. We get a check in the mail two weeks before we default on a house payment. We say it was a coincidental bank error. Our cars start every morning, there is food in the grocery store and we have money to buy it, we flip a switch and the lights come on and we explain it all away with earthly explanations. We don't see any of those things as "miraculous". We see them as normal everyday things that we humans have innovated, nothing special.
Even in more spiritual things, we explain a lot away. You suddenly come to an answer about a problem you've been praying about. You give yourself the credit for figuring it out, though, because it's not like the clouds parted and God spoke to you. You just thought it up on your own. Or, that person you've been praying about is finally healed. You praise the doctors, because they finally figured out the right combination of medication. It couldn't have been God because we know it was the medical care.
How can we be so blind? How can we be so prideful? How can we miss the hand and face of a God that we so desperately seek?
I challenge my reader to take the next 24 hours and make a conscious effort to see everything as thought it has indeed come directly from the hand of God. You are reading this on the internet, not because I wrote it, but because God gave me these words to speak to you. God also gave people the ideas to make your computer, build the internet, generate electricity and even develop written language. Your car is a conglomeration of God working through many different people whose work resulted in your personal transportation vehicle. God hand has chosen every person you are going to interact with in the next 24 hours and orchestrated every event. Make an effort to view everything in this light and see if you don't start seeing the miraculous pop up everywhere.
Our God still does crazy awesome things...we just need to open our eyes and see it!!!
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