Miracles

For months now I have been reading about miracles. It started last year, before we were even thinking of trying to have a baby. At the time we were waiting and hoping to adopt a baby that was born last month. In the end that didn't work out and had we had all of the details earlier we would have pointed the birth mother in the direction of a couple outside of our church. So, on some level I believe it did work out for the best--for us.

People are always giving me books to read. I guess the assume that as the pastor's wife I need to read it or maybe they just like it and they want to share it with me. However it happens, I love it, because I love to read. Last year it was a book by missionary Heidi Baker and it was awesome. It's all about the miracles taking place everyday in Mozambique through their service, but also with other missionaries. When I first read it I thought, "yea, well, miracles always happen in places like Africa or China or North Korea, but they don't happen in the Western world." Then I found the Angus Buchan story in Faith Like Potatoes and others. I am also reading God's Plan for Pregnancy by Nerida Walker from Australia--who experienced a healing miracle in her desire to have a family.

I know that this is a God thing, because all of these books or DVDs, all the talk of miracles has come to me from other people. I have not sought them out. I didn't wake-up one day and decide to study miracles. But now I am. And I am totally intrigued and challenged. Why don't miracles happen more in the Western world? What is so different about our faith from those in Africa or China? I don't know the answers to those questions, other than perhaps it is because they are more fully reliant on God for their every need.

What I know is that I want that kind of faith. I want to see miracles occur around me--not just for me. I am so excited at the possibilities.

We live in a country with distinctly Christian origins, but as a whole the nation has turned away from God. We have a PM who admits to not having any faith at all (I like him, by-the-way, he is a good man, but I grieve for his lack of faith). And we are an immigrant nation--something like 1,000 applications are processed everyday. We need immigrants to maintain our economy as our young people often move overseas where the money is better. But slowly, our nation is becoming more Buddhist, more Hindu, and more Muslim. Christians are now less than 4% of our population. Being in ministry here is like being a missionary. I want to see a miracle in our nation.

Anyway, all of this to explain how depressed I get with people (sometimes including DH) who continue to de-value prayer for healing or prayer for miracles. His birth mother is here for the weekend to watch our kids while we go away tonight. She is a paediatric nurse and so it is understandable that her life is often filled with darker things. But she is also just the kind of person who likes to sit and talk about so and so who died, or so and so who got hit by a truck--and not just that it happened, but all the gory details. This was our conversation over breakfast this morning. All I could think of was I am glad that my kids are still too small to really understand what she is talking about. But how will I get her to stop doing it when they are a bit older? It's makes me depressed. Fortunately, I discovered that DH had spilled a whole bottle of Terryaki sauce in the fridge so I had to clean it and then was extracted from the conversation. 

Together they were putting out the whole spill (we've all heard it) about how miracles don't always happen. Sometimes it is irresponsible to pray for them, etc. I hate that speech. We do all know that sometimes miracles don't happen, we don't know why. But I don't think that means we automatically cease to ask for them or expect them. Just one miracle received is worth the possible hopes dashed of others that are not. I know that in the times when we don't receive the miracle we seek that God is there to work in that situation and that He will use it for good, if we allow Him too. I know and believe all of that. BUT--I think one of the reasons we don't experience the miracles here that they do in other parts of the world where Christianity is on fire is because we don't seek them out. Ask and ye shall receive--not don't ask and hope for the best or better still resign yourself to something less so you won't get your hopes up.

Just my thoughts for the day. I know that God is doing a work in me that I don't fully understand at the moment, but I will someday. This is Bonnie, praying for and believing in a miracle.