I have seen God work in so many way. I remember hearing someone say one time, sorry can't remember who said it but..., "Do we believe less in miracles because we see less miracles, or do we see less miracles because we believe less"? I actually heard a person say once, "that only happened back in Biblical time (miracles)", my heart felt so sad for that person. How can anyone who believes go through life thinking that God has changed His ways and has decided to cease in the miracle department.
For those of you who heard me share my 'Faith Journey after Losing Nathan", need to understand if you don't already, even before Nathan died, I believed God could and would do as he saw fit. From the time I prayed for him to give me what ever he wanted me to have, so each morning I could give him the glory as he wanted me to. If you have not yet heard my story, you can still hear it. Follow these steps.
1). Go to www.chillicotheumc.org
2). On the right hand side of the home page click on Sermons (audio)
3). You are now at the Recent Sermon page, You will see the Title, "Why I Lift My Hand" with my name under it. Double click on it. It will take a few moments but it will come up and you will hear that service right before I begin to speak. You will also hear my girlfriend Angel sing a song that I felt explained my experience.
Back to miracles, as if that story isn't enough to prove them. Over and over again I have seen miracle happen while on my mission trips, from a Chief in a Nigerian muslim village allowing his wives and the members of his tribe, to worship the Three in One to our team in Haiti having a specific amount of money left to work with and that is the exact amount that was needed to purchase additional plates and cups for the meal service of the additional children coming to the school. I am sure many of you have said, what a coincidence. Why do we as Christians say that? Why do we come and worship Sunday morning, listen to the words spoken, sing the songs that lift Him up, to only walk out the door with the same attitude as we did when we walked in?
Something that our new Pastor, John Rice, said really hit home with me. I found that I also do what he had done. He shared about going to a local diner (I guess you could call Nicks a diner) and while there, during ice tea fill ups, struck up a conversation with the waitress. He learned about her struggles, her hurts, her frustrations. All over the time it took to get his ice tea filled. Invited her to church. Sowed a seed of love and caring. One thing I have struggled with over the last 5 years of doing mission work here, is dealing with the #1 question that I always hear up my return. What did you do, how much work did you get done. How do I explain to people that I held a child while he slept for an hour or we walked almost 5 miles, just to move 50 cinder blocks, because the conversation on the walk, was more important that moving the blocks themselves were. That we played Skip-Bo with some of the older Haitian boys, because them learning English and us learning Haitian was not paramount, but the fact that we laughed and shared about our lives to each other was. The "work" we do in many cases is very important, but "I" can do the work. It is when I slow down that "God" takes over and His work starts happening. I have personally seen so many miracles come from those quite, seemingly mundane moments of our trip. It is those moments, I continue to see a harvest of fruit on my return visits. He is at work. He still performs miracles every day. I guess some of us are just waiting for the water to turn to wine or for the sea to turn red.
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