Not Seeing is Believing

When I started walking with God, I believed he would do miracles. I read the Bible and saw so much evidence of God doing miracles, it didn’t even cross my mind that God wouldn’t do them in my life or in the lives of those I loved. I couldn’t find any evidence of God NOT doing miracles except in the church where I was on staff.  Honestly, I didn’t see miracles there. I didn’t know why. I didn’t ask why. I just kept asking for them.

At that time when I thought about miracles I categorized them as the dead being raised, the sick being healed, the barren conceiving a child. But, really … aren’t miracles also things like breathing and the ability to love? I’ve come to believe everything is really miraculous.  The way God chooses to let me partner with him is a miracle. You reading this article is a miracle—if you read to the end it is truly a miracle!  Okay … getting off track. But, I have some thoughts about the plans, purposes and heart of God in doing a miracle in your life, no matter how it would be categorized.

I’ve been a miracle-seeking and believing girl as long as I can remember. For instance, I’ve always believed the best in people. Even if there was a bad circumstance, I’ve always thought there would be a miracle in my situation. I don’t have the gift of positivity or anything. I don’t know why I’m this way except to say God made me this way. And I’ve learned that in Christian lingo, it’s called “the gift of faith.” As a daydreamer, I have a mind that wanders to a conflict that ends in a wonderful conversation or a prayer that makes a sick person well before my eyes.

And yet, most of the time it never ends the way I dreamed. God usually does it differently than I imagined. Sometimes I like His way, and sometimes I don’t like His way. That’s the honest truth. Sometimes I just don’t like it because it was a hard process. Remember, I’m a dreamer.  Dreamers don’t imagine hard roads to victory. Hard road are more like bad dreams. But, I ALWAYS agree with God, because I know I can’t see everything He sees. I don’t think God is bothered by my honesty in this. He knows I’m a child with a desire to have a larger capacity for His ways and His thoughts. I’m on a journey from glory to glory and being transformed into His image. Now, that process alone is a MIRACLE!

Back to that church … I had a boss who asked me if my dream was dead yet. The dream he was referring to was my desire to be married. He said that when it’s dead, then God can give it back to me. Even now I can’t wrap my mind around that reality. I mean, if I know God will give it back once I decide it’s done, dead and moved on, then that’s trying to manipulate God into doing what I want by giving it up. And if I walk away from what God has planted in my heart, where is my faith? It’s very confusing … I don’t know how NOT to believe God for miracles (and the older I get, the more a marriage for me is categorized along with a miracle of raising the dead.)  I think what the boss-man was saying was that I needed to seek God more than the dream. I get that.

But, I also radically believe God’s promises. I can’t separate the two. To believe a dream is dead is to say God doesn’t do miracles. To me it’s like saying God isn’t good. And it’s a lack of faith that God will fulfill the desire He put in my heart. I mean the alternative is to go to prayer with an attitude that sounds like this, “God, I believe you for (blank) but I’m giving it to you to the point where I don’t think it’s going to happen … so it’s really dead … so I’m not disappointed if you don’t do it. But, if you like my ability to make it dead, then maybe you will do it.”  I wonder how many times that thought is what’s really in the heart of people putting a disclaimer on their prayers?

These thoughts comprised the pondering of my heart on my walk this morning. Then I came home to pick up my study in Luke. Chapter 7 was the portion for today, and I was just about to move to verse 18. God spoke to my heart and said, “Go back, because I want to show you something.” I went back to verses 11-17, where Jesus came across a widow woman whose only son had died, and she was weeping. Jesus had “compassion” on her. He raised her son from the dead. All that woman’s dreams died with her only son. And all her dreams rose with one word from Jesus.

God said to me, “Jill, I can raise a dream from the dead even if it looks dead, smells dead, and there are many witnesses for the validity of the death.” I was really touched by the compassion God showed me in this area … he knows my heart and has seen my tears.

At first I was tempted to think, “you can’t raise from the dead that which isn’t dead” and agree with the boss-man. Does something have to die to be raised?  There goes my whole theory!  But, God said “if it looks dead,” so he’s bringing attention to things that just look dead and everyone else has given up hope on. I bet if that woman was walking and still praying, there was a way this circumstance wasn’t true. How often do we walk that way… in the way of the crowd and keeping our hope to ourselves because we’d be labeled crazy to believe something other than that which “looks” impossible.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance of all things hoped for but not seen.” It can look, smell and have confirmations from others that something is dead.  But if God says it will have life, it will live! I mean, what if that widow said to Jesus, “Oh, thanks for caring for me but he’s dead … there isn’t anything you can say that will bring him back.” This is God we are talking about! He speaks life into our circumstances. Once he speaks a word, it comes to pass!

Three things hit me:

1. Life didn’t rely on the widow’s faith (v13).

2. One word from Jesus and everything changed (v14).

3. God was glorified (v16).

Now for the point of my rambling. I believe I’m not the only one who is still standing on faith and waiting for God to fulfill His promise. I also know I’m not the only one who has heard we should give it to God and He will give it back.

Maybe you are waiting (like me) for your husband. Maybe you are waiting on God for a child, healing or a job. It bothers me that someone would say I need to give up my dream and say it’s dead when I know the Word says faith pleases God! I stand in agreement with Him. He is good, and He is not a man that He should lie. God will do all that He set forth to accomplish. His word does not return empty. He is faithful. All it takes is one word from God. Your circumstance may look hopeless but God sees things differently.

He is a God of miracles. In this case, not seeing IS believing!