Miracles reach beyond the laws of nature, as we understand them, to do what man cannot accomplish on his own.
Today was my six-month check up with my ophthalmologist. I think she likes to see me. On a routine basis, she sees many patients with serious eye conditions, some that cannot be fixed. I, on the other hand, have experienced improved vision, and everyone, including doctors, likes happy endings. I’m also one of her ornery patients. Instead of whining that I can’t see the chart, I get excited when I see one letter on the 20/80 line.
“I have one patient who got upset at me because I could only bring his vision up to 20/25 after cataract surgery,” she confided to me once.
Today she ticked off her discoveries like checking off a shopping list. “Your pressure is good, your corneas are – a little thick at the top but no cysts or abscesses – I just can’t find anything bad today.” For a patient who has a whole bucketful of eye issues, that’s saying a lot.
While she was examining my eyes, she exclaimed once again how easy it was to see through my pupil opening. Before my eye surgery two years ago, damage from childhood surgeries had tightened my pupil into a tiny pinprick. The specialist who repaired my torn retina made the on the spot decision to widen my pupil and clean out debris left from an incomplete cataract removal. Widening the pupil allowed more light to enter my eye. It also had the advantage of allowing my ophthalmologist to get a better look at the back of my eye, something that even heavy doses of dilation drops wouldn’t allow her to do.
Dr Brody swiveled her chair toward my chart on her desk. “It’s such a miracle,” she murmured.
“Yes it is!” I agreed.
Was it a miracle?
As wondrous as my eyesight improvement has been, I hesitate to use the word miracle. As I read the accounts in the Bible about some of Jesus’ healings, like the account of the man in Matthew 8 who was cured of leprosy, I realize the vast difference between his experience and mine. Web MD describes leprosy, or Hanson’s Disease, as “an infectious disease that causes open, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms, legs, and skin areas around the body.” Since leprosy kills nerves, victims can no longer feel pain. Without the gift of pain, the patient may damage body parts and never know it.
Today, leprosy is easily curable. But it wasn’t in Jesus’ day. People with leprosy were shunned and sent to live as outcasts. That’s why the Leper’s aggressive approach of Jesus in Matthew 8 was so brazen. I bet the crowd scattered faster than falling leaves on a windy day.
With one touch, Jesus healed the man (Matthew 8:3). Read that sentence again. With one touch, just one touch, the telltale damage from the leprosy was gone. I spent two weeks face down on a pillow and several more weeks fighting inflammation, infection, and elevated eye pressure. With one touch from Jesus, rashes disappeared, fingers straightened, missing toes reappeared, and the skin around the man’s nose was replenished. Just like that.
Now that’s a miracle.
Undeniable. Instantaneous. Complete.
Jesus had the power to touch the man and body parts reappeared. That’s what the power of God can do.
Was my improved sight any less of a miracle? It took time to heal. Some shake their heads and counter with the argument that the advances of modern medical technology are amazing. But you know what? The important fact is this – Jesus did it. I know – and my ophthalmologist knows – just how badly damaged my eyes were. No, God did not give me complete healing. But He did enough to prove to us and many others around us that there was a Power beyond mere medical technology that stretched beyond the laws of nature and the laws of broken eyeballs.
The definition of a miracle is that it is an occurrence that defies the laws of nature as we understand them. We also need to consider the purpose of miracles as well. Jesus heals us, not merely for our convenience of better health or because being physically ill is wrong. He heals and performs other miracles to undeniably prove to us that He is who He says He is – the divine Son of God. No one on this earth has the power to alter the natural course of things or to create something out of nothing. Only Jesus.
Miracle. Gift from God. Answered prayer. Whatever it was, God did what humans could not do.
God has me convinced. He has the power to do anything. Beyond my own experience, the Bible contains account after account of men and women healed instantly and completely by the touch and word of Jesus. He accomplished miracles that could not have been replicated by anyone, even by modern medical technology
If Jesus can improve the sight of a fifty-five year old woman, restore body parts of a leper with but a single touch, speak to a raging storm that immediately stills at His one word, then what else can He do? What can he do in your life?
Can He:
- Repair broken relationships?
- Give you super-human emotional strength to endure impossible situations?
- Break the laws of nature: gravity, forward motion, and physics to protect you from harm?
- Re-orient your mindset to release an incorrect world-view you’ve clung to all your life?
- Break the chains of addictions, bad habits, and behavior patterns that have held you prisoner all your life?
- Release you from life-long fears, phobias, and anxieties?
- Free you from the grip of guilt and forgive all that you’ve done against Him in the past?
Yes! Yes He can.
If he can heal my eyesight, He can do these things for you.
When I consider the transformed lives of some of my brothers and sisters in Christ, I wonder if healing physical eyesight is a walk in the park compared to the transformation of blinded souls.
I am amazed at God’s power to release the captives from the chains of sin and dysfunction.
Let Him have the chance to heal your life situations and your longing soul. Ask Him. He has the power to do anything. It may not be instantaneous. It may be a series of small miracles, a cluster of embedded miracles occurring at the time of His choosing. Seek Him with all you have. Cry out to Him, relinquish your way of doing things, and submit yourself to following Him on His terms. Immerse yourself in prayer, bible study and service to others. Trust in His love for you. Never give up on His intentions for the best for you.
He loves you so much. His gifts are good. He can and will restore you. For you see, His gift of salvation is the greatest miracle of all.
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