Albert Einstein is attributed with saying that there are only two ways to live life, one as if everything is a miracle and the other as if nothing is. Now when I consider the life of Einstein I can't help but regard him as this highly intelligent man who legitimately knew stuff... like deeply understood the complexities of how things worked. Yet here's this guy who got things on this highly intellectual level, and yet, still believed in miracles (or at least I am assuming he did...I mean, if he didn't why even bother saying anything about miracles to begin with, unless of course in some way he actually believed in them). Personally, as much as I long to be the type of person who sees the miracles all around me, more times than not, I just don't. I even have to fight to see the miracle IN the miracle sometimes!
For example, this morning I am sitting in church and our pastor tells this awesome story about the healing of a woman in our congregation, and the whole time I am listening to this testimony, instead of celebrating and rejoicing together with the rest of the church in celebration of what God had done...all that was going through my head was, "false positives on medical test happen all the time, it doesn't mean she was healed, just that medicine is an imperfect science". SERIOUSLY, JESSICA! What is wrong with me?! This is a miracle! Whether or not the test was accurate, God came through and gave his daughter what she needed! The God of the universe, who not only created everything but is in everything, saw fit to reach down his mighty hand and touch this woman's life! He gave her peace, comfort, his love, and quite possibly healing...and THAT IS A MIRACLE! That is a REASON TO CELEBRATE and praise God! And that is an example of the awesome God we serve, so I should be more excited about it...not caught up in an internal debate about whether or not this constitutes as a move of God or just a medical oversight.
Then a little later in service, as things were winding down, we had an opportunity as a church to pray for people sitting around us who needed a physical healing. Has we were doing so, our campus pastor said something like "nobody who ever came to Jesus for healing walked away without receiving it"...and in my pessimistic (often so easily to doubt) mind, all I kept thinking about was those who aren't healed...those who desire so badly for God to take away a physical ailment and yet, even after coming to God fully expecting him to heal them, walk away exactly the same.
Immediately my mind flashed to a moment in Ecuador when I was praying for a young girl and her mother for healing. They came to me so desperate for God to do something, and even though I felt such a lack in me, I put everything on the table before God and literally felt like I had ripped out my own heart and handed it to God as a sacrifice to heal this girl (which mind you, I know that's not how prayer works and that Jesus is the only sacrifice...but honestly, that's how deeply invested in this girls healing I was...that I was literally was pouring out my entire heart before God on behalf of this girl)...and in the end she and her mom walked away, just as broken and desperate as they came in. Now we can debate all the merits of what happened and if and where blame can be placed (if you can even call it blame), but pushing all that aside, there's still the reality that sometimes healing doesn't happen when or how we want it or think it should.
I mean look at the bible....look at Jesus's life and how he went about healing people. I don't think it was a haphazard thing or that every single person around him who needed it got a physical healing just cause they wanted it. Jesus seemed to have a point to everything he did...and He followed the voice of the father in everything. Even in the story of the healing at the pool of Bethesda, we see all these people sitting around waiting for the water to be stirred so they can get into it and be healed physically, yet Jesus comes to that place and he only physically heals ONE person (Now, maybe he healed more than that, but the bible only tells us about the one and I would think that had he healed others there, at least one of the gospels would have picked up on it...but I could always be wrong). I can imagine though, that there were other people there that day, sitting by the pool who deeply desired their healing....yet they didn't seem to get it....at least not that day...the day when Jesus was literally there in their midst. I think there is something important to consider in that. That maybe healing and miracles don't depend on our desire, or our faith, or even us at all, but on God...who knows way more about the situation than any of us ever could and who gives us what we need when we need it and not necessarily when and how we want it. Any maybe, miracles and healing don't look like what we expect.
So I guess, bringing all of this back to the concept of how we (or rather I) view miracles....maybe miracles are more than what meets the eye...more than even what we expect them to be. And maybe everyone who comes to Jesus for healing does receive it, just maybe not in the way we expect. Maybe we seek the physical manifestation, but what God is more concerned with is our heart. And when we put our faith out there, reach out to him and choose to believe in Him, He can and does perform a miracle in us....even if we physically walk away exactly the same. We cannot encounter God and walk away without being changed in some way! IT IS NOT POSSIBLE! And in knowing and believing in that, we are able to receive our miracle, day in and day out. And maybe that is how we begin to live life as if everything is a miracle, and not as if nothing is!
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