MIRACLES

What is a miracle?  A miracle is more than an action.  If it were simply a surprising outcome in a military confrontation, you could say Hitler’s blitzkriegs were miraculous.  I believe there are three intermingling factors involved in a miracle.  There is the purpose of the motivation, the action, and the effect of the miracle.  The purpose must be grounded in the hope that the first will be last and the servant of all and the effect must be to make the principle a reality.  By these two realities, the action gains its content.  In this way, the person who is healed of cancer may thank God for his mercy and the person who dies of cancer can thank God for the strength to endure the treatments for the purpose of a search for healing and the ability to sacrifice that doctors learn more in the quest to find a cure.  They both are benefactors of God's mercy.   The second has received the power to lay down a life for another, and the first has been given the opportunity to express thanks through future servanthood.  The person healed is only a recipient of a miracle if the latter occurs.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,  “When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, ‘Show a miracle for yourselves,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and let it become a serpent.’  So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and they did so, just as the Lord commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.  But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; so the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.  For every man threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.  And Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had said.  Exodus 7: 8-13