Are You Missing the Miracle

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you woke up and found a pile of money on your kitchen counter? God could cause money to show up unexpectedly in nice little stacks for you, because he can. Wouldn’t it be great to see a pile of money sitting there? Maybe you really have a financial need. Maybe you are late on bills. Maybe you have a medical treatment that needs to be done and the cost is more than your bank account can afford. Sometimes there is a need for a miracle. So where do we go and what do we do?

What if your concept of miracles is all wrong? What if you’re missing the miracle because you have wrong expectation of how miracles happen? What if your miracle is right in front of you and it’s waiting to happen? What if you’re missing a miracle because you’re trying to play God and dictate how the miracle must come?

God is the miracle worker. He can do anything and everything at any given time. God does not need us to accomplish his purposes. However, he includes us in the process. Sometimes we miss the miracle because we expect God to do the unexpected, expecting nothing from us.

Let me challenge your thinking for a moment. Let me show you some scripture that might bring revelation to how God performs a miracle.

Let’s use the miracle of money appearing unexpectedly. Well, sort of appearing unexpectedly.

In the book of Matthew, chapter 17, Jesus is with Peter, and a tax collector comes questioning him about taxes. Clearly they have no money to pay the taxes. So in order to pay the tax Jesus sent Peter to go fishing. Jesus told Peter to open the mouth of the first fish and find the money needed to pay the tax. Jesus performed the miracle, but Peter was given a responsibility in the process. God knew where the money could be found and he gave Peter instruction on how to manifest the miracle. (Matt. 17:24-27)

Let me ask you something. Did Jesus need the fish to perform the miracle? Did Jesus need Peter’s help? Is the only way money magically appears through fishing?

No dear friend. None of that is necessary. God could just speak some money into existence the way he did the world. He is all powerful. He needs no one and nothing. He is God.

So what’s going on here? How do other miracles occur in the Bible? Do we see similarities in situations where the hand of God does miraculous things? What can we learn and understand about the process of God performing miracles in our life?

Let’s take a look at some other Bible stories.

In the book of Numbers, chapter 20, the Israelites wanted and needed water. God spoke to Moses, who was leading them, and gave him instructions for getting water. God tells Moses what do to get the miracle. Did you get that? God didn’t just speak the word water and make it appear before them. God gave Moses opportunity and purpose to participate. God was including Moses in the process.

In the book of Joshua, chapter 6, the children of God are facing a fortified city that is impossible to penetrate. Yet God tells them the walls of the city will fall down. How, you ask? God does the miraculous, but first, he tells Joshua what to do. God said to Joshua to have the people march around the city a certain way every day and then on the last day after marching blow the trumpets and have the people shout. After they did this, guess what happened? Yep, the fortified walls came tumbling down. Once again God could have just toppled the walls in an instant. However, God included his children in the process and gave them some responsibility to participate. Gave gave them a purpose to be part of the plan.

What about Noah? In the book of Genesis, chapter 6, God tells Noah that he was going to destroy the whole earth by sending a flood. He made a decision that he would save Noah from the wrath that he would pour out upon the earth. God would miraculously keep Noah alive and protect him through the annihilation of the earth. How did he do that? He gave Noah instructions on what to do to make that miracle happen. God told Noah to build a boat and collect food. Couldn’t God just zap everyone and everything and put a protective bubble around Noah and be done with it? God chose to perform a miracle with the cooperation and participation of Noah. God was going to make the flood happen. God told Noah how his miraculous salvation would come. Noah needed to do something for the miracle to occur. He needed to do the work of building a boat and collecting food or he would die.

Are you seeing a pattern here? It is God who does the miracle. It is God who makes the miraculous come to pass, but it is also God who calls us into the process. It is God who gives us a purpose in the plan. It is God who has us participate in the performance.

Do you have walls in your life that need to come down? Maybe God has called you to march and you are just sitting around waiting for God to perform but he is waiting for you to participate.

Are you in need of money? Are you hoping it will just magically arrive? Do you want God to perform a miracle and provide? Maybe you haven’t followed God’s instruction on receiving that miracle. What is your part of the process? What do you need to do to allow the miracle to manifest?

Jesus continues this theme in the performance of miracles. In the book of John, chapter 9, Jesus spits on mud and puts it on a blind man. He then tells the man to go and wash in a specific pool. The man comes back healed. Jesus commanded demons to leave peoples bodies, couldn’t he command the blindness to leave? Jesus included the man in his miracle and had him obey by participating in the process.

Are you missing a miracle? Are you waiting around for God to give you one and he is waiting for you to receive one? Stop and ask the Lord what you might be missing? Listen for the voice of God and be willing to do what ever he says. Having mud put in your eye with spit doesn’t make sense, sound helpful, beneficial, or fun. But it brought healing to the blind.

Maybe you have already received a miracle, but don’t recognize it because you have false expectation of what a miracle is or how God should perform one. I would encourage you to take an assessment of your life and put into perspective the knowledge that God uses us in the process and has us participate. Take time and see if you need to go back to God and thank him for the miracles in your life.

Change your perspective and you will see how many times God has shown up to perform a miracle in your life. This will also set you up to recognize future miracles taking place in the future. Be ready to participate and be part of the process!

God created us for his pleasure, but he allows us to participate in the miracles so we find our purpose in him! Hallelujah!