She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” - Mark 5:25-28 (NLT)
Those of us who are believers know that our Lord and Savior was the only perfect human who ever walked the face of this earth and we also know that His father, the Lord, God Almighty, made us in His image as well. Despite those important pieces of eternal spiritual knowledge, we should also know that all things we have, from our personality, our talents to all the possessions that we worked hard for are His as well. He allowed us to have them for the time we are on this earth. We can't take them with us. And from this it should go without saying that it also means that skilled people we count on for their mastery of so many difficult and technical things also received those gifts from God. So, after saying that, why do we so many of us say we don't believe in miracles being performed by mankind?
We know that Jesus performed many great miracles during his short thirty-three years on earth and we also know that through the gift of the Holy Spirit he created miracle workers in some of his devoted followers. Why would His people in those days be capable of performing miracles but not in our modern day? And there is no reason that they shouldn't, for when we combine the strength of faith with the ability to focus directly with God in thought, prayer and word, then in such a tight bond of close affiliation miracles can indeed happen. Some are so awesome that they leave us speechless, yet others might be less readily visible unless we individually are the one receiving the benefit. I say this because God uses mysterious ways of doing things and we never know who He might choose to provide one.
Think of it in today's complex and rapidly-changing earthly environment and think of all the wondrous things that we have produced to make life better. None is more readily of interest than in the medical field where serious diseases and ailments that once were nearly always fatal are now easily dealt with. Surgery offers many great examples of that and who is not to say that each of them is a miracle in its own right. Remember, God can use anyone He chooses to provide the miracle and sometimes there is a hidden meaning in his choice. But to see a person near death with a serious heart condition made able to live a normal and productive life for years beyond what he expected is, at least in the eyes of the patient, a miracle in its own right. And since God is the one who allows each of us to develop talents to be able to use, then He is the reason for the success even if the provider might not even realize it. And perhaps he sometimes allows a man who doesn't believe but also has the willpower to learn the skills to saves lives to understand the reason for God before He is done. After all, Albert Einstein didn't believe in God for a long time, yet before death he said he could come up with no basis for not believing that God is who He says He is. Nothing else made sense to him.
Why is this so important to grasp? Well, quite simply, it's to make sure we give God the true credit for all things that positively happen to us in this world, for He is the one who gives us the Light which affords us the knowledge to do these things. And the bad things that also happen? Well, you can thank the fallen angel for those since he is the Prince of Darkness. Had that great surgeon we know opted to do something that was not beneficial for mankind and very positive results, he would have never been a great physician at all, but at best, a mediocre one or something else. Give God the credit and we'll look at life and its mysteries in a much different way.
Dear Lord, We thank you for the gifts you have given us, including the gift of great practitioners of excellence in so many things we count on and we pray that we will readily see the wonders that you provide for us in all aspects of life. Grant us the discernment to be able to do so. Amen.