Sometimes, I pray for a miracle and I don’t really believe God is going to answer. But I pray anyway. Sometimes…sometimes…He answers.
That has happened twice in the last 6 months. I prayed because someone asked me to. I prayed out of obedience because that is what my relationship with God requires. God tells us to have faith, but His miracles don’t depend on our faith.
I am so glad of that.
The Gospel of Mark (5:24-34) tells of a woman that had suffered hemorrhaging for 12 years. TWELVE YEARS! She had spent everything she had on doctors, she has been outcast from her family and society because of the nature of her illness (it made her unclean). She can’t even go to church or Thanksgiving, you know. She hears that Jesus is in town and tells herself, “If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed.” So she presses through the crowd, touches his clothes and is healed. Jesus commends her, “Your faith has healed you.”
I don’t have faith like that.
There have been many times where I’ve prayed for something and I feel that God’s answer must be “No” or he has chosen not to intercede. While I am praying, my heart is full of doubt. I can almost see the opposite result than I am praying for in my mind, but I am praying anyway. Because I love the person I’m praying for. Because my heart is broken over the situation.
And then He answers.
Mind blown.
He is still the God of miracles. Big miracles.
It’s a good thing that He doesn’t need my faith to make them happen. Because we’d be up a creek if that were the case.
There are plenty of verses that command us to have faith. To have faith while praying. To have faith in asking. To have small faith to do big things.
Lucky for us, His acts don’t depend on our faith. Mark alone has plenty of examples of that:
- Jesus calming the storm: nobody in that boat even thought to ask Jesus to do it. (Mark 4:35-41)
- Jesus walking on water: what the ?!?! Talk about freaking his friends out! (Mark 6:45-52)
- Jesus heals a demon-possessed man: no one in the town even knew who Jesus was until he showed up. The healed man became the missionary to his town and the surrounding area! (Mark 5:1-20)
- When he fed the 5,000: no one thought to even ask him to provide lunch! (Mark 6:30-44)
If my eyes are open to look for them, I can see small miracles around me in the everyday. But every once in a while, God blows me away by answering prayers for a big miracle. That happened this week. I prayed. I had been praying. I felt that it was too late. My heart was breaking knowing the result. There was no logical reason that what I was praying for would come to pass. As I’m praying, my stomach was upset, my chest hurt, my throat had a lump.
Because I lacked faith. I thought I knew where this would go.
But I kept on praying.
Mere hours later, I got a message that God had interceded and answered our prayers. I spent the rest of the evening totally overwhelmed with gratitude and emotion. My eyes just kept leaking. I am so thankful for the miracle, but beyond that, I’m thankful for the reminder: God is still a God of miracles.
Humbled and grateful,
Heather Smith
