Our Miracle Working God

I have 30 of the sweetest women who are meeting with me on Sunday nights to go through Beth Moore's Believing God. I have to tell you that God is stretching this feet of clay facilitator because when I walked in that first night there were maybe 5 or 6 familiar faces! The rest were women whom I had never had the privilege of meeting before. I am a 40-something perimenopausal woman who can't remember what she did 15 minutes ago, let alone names of 25 new faces!! But God is doing something powerful in our class and can I just say now that they are becoming dear, dear sisters in Christ?

Sunday night we held our discussion on Week Two's homework, "God is Who He Says He is." I wrote the words "He is..." across our whiteboard and for 2 or 3 minutes we filled it with everything that He is to us and then all agreed that He is all that and much, much more!

I had 3 women in my class Sunday night who could not share fast enough when I asked if anyone would like to share specific "God Stops" in their lives that week -- a God Stop is a moment in your life when you absolutely are aware of the power and the work of God in your life. Priscilla Shirer calls this kind of awareness, God Awareness. Their stories were very similar. All three women had experienced a great loss in their lives -- the death of a parent. All three said that they begged and pleaded God for a miraculous healing. All three confessed that because God didn't deliver the way they thought He would they responded with bitterness, anger towards Him, and distancing themselves from all things faith. One woman's story was a 10 year journey -- 10 YEARS!

All three had a transformation this week! They all moved beyond the devastation and realized that God is a God who still performs miracles, but He is also a God who sometimes prioritizes the inward working of His power in the lives of His children over the external manifestation of His power through signs, wonders and miracles. When their testimonies were done, they all said the same thing in theory: "I had no idea that He wanted to do something in my life far greater than a physical healing would have accomplished! It was all for my good and His glory!!"

I have had this scripture in mind all week:

I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. (Psalm 77:12-14)

Now, I'm not a Greek student, but when I look at the words in this scripture I notice a couple of things. The word "perform" means exactly what we think it means, but when I look up the word "miracles" I find that it means something extraordinary, wonderous, miraculous, but it also means "hard to understand thing."

All of the ladies who gave words of testimony in my class described their devastation as something they didn't quite understand. His ways are not our ways -- we will never completely understand. Here's an "in pencil" thought: Perhaps during the times we understand Him the least is when He is performing His greatest miracles in our lives.

I believe my friends would all say the same thing if asked what they have learned: "I didn't understand then. I don't fully understand now. But this I know -- He loves me, He is involved in my life and the work that He is doing in me is good with His intended purpose and outcome being worked out."

One final thought on all of this...

DON'T STOP PRAYING FOR THE MIRACLE! Just because God didn't perform the way you wanted Him to before doesn't mean that He can't! He is still a God who performs miracles -- both internal and external. Let's take every possible chance to stretch more and more in His direction, lean into Him more and more, and trust Him with what we cannot understand.

Blessings,
Dori