By Chris WittsMonday 30 Sep 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
There is this myth in Australia that we don’t get tornadoes, but actually we do. We get about 40 a year. Talk to people that have been through them, and they can tell you how terrifying they are. Back in 2004, Victorians faced two tornadoes, one in the Grampians, and six months later, another tornado hit the Noble Park area in Victoria. Now, during one of those events, a miracle happened.
The damage was devastating, but one family was virtually sucked out of their living room window. Their baby daughter, who was strapped to a high chair, was carried over a barbed wire fence and landed 20 metres away in a paddock. And despite all this, the whole family survived unscathed at the time. It caught the attention of the press, and people marveled at this miracle, so I can say it this way. A miracle is an event outside our normal human experience. Otherwise, it’s not a miracle.
Looking for miracles
It’s said of the King of Siam that he refused to believe stories of rivers that became so hard that the elephants could walk across them. Nothing prepared him for this possibility. I guess you can sympathise with him.
But the fact that he’d never encountered ice does not mean that ice does not exist or that rivers never freeze over. Just because you’ve never seen a miracle doesn’t mean a miracle can’t happen. Let me tell you a true story From the US – A father had a 15-year-old daughter who was being bullied in school. She was very distressed. She couldn’t cope with it.
And there was another school not far away. But it was outside the permitted zone. In other words, she couldn’t change schools. He approached the vice principal and was told, no, it’s not allowed. He phoned. The second school pleaded with them. No, you can’t get a change for your daughter. And the student pleaded with her father to lie about their home address, using a friend’s location inside the zone.
So he didn’t know what the solution was. He gave up, but he prayed that God would protect his daughter, and he felt as if God had said, don’t worry about it. Go to bed and sleep. The next morning, the vice principal of the girls school rang him. He said I had a terrible night last night. I heard a loud voice telling me to arrange a transfer for this girl. It kept up until I couldn’t ignore it. So I will contact the school and arrange the transfer, and she enrolled into the second school.
Now I thought that was great story. I want to say that God performed a miracle for that family. After that, the father prayed for God’s help. I don’t fully understand how this happens, but I do know that God is all powerful and God can do whatever he wants. He intervened in that family by a miracle. When we look at the life of Jesus in the Bible, there were times when he performed several miracles. He turned water into wine at a wedding feast. He calmed a storm one evening out in the boat with his friends, during really rough weather.
He healed people who were sick and he restored sight to the blind. But there is a problem. His miracles incensed the religious leaders and the teachers of the day because their authority was threatened and they planned to do away with him as soon as they could. But they still couldn’t ignore what was happening before their eyes. He healed a leper. He provided examples for people to follow. He healed a paralysed man because of the faith of his friends. So those miracles prove that Jesus’ teachings were true.
In other words, Jesus was who he said he was. Jesus was crucified and died on the cross for our sins. And while he hung on that cross, he could have invoked all the power in heaven that he had used when performing miracles to save himself. But he didn’t. He loves us so much that he was prepared to be murdered on the cross.
The miracle here is that he not only died for the good people, but for everyone. And the Apostle Paul puts it very clearly. In Romans Chapter five – it is rare to find someone willing to die for an upright person, although it’s possible that someone may give up his life for the one who is truly good. But think about this. While we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed his powerful love to us when Jesus, the anointed one died for us. Now that’s what I call a real miracle.
Let’s Pray
Heavenly Father, I thank you that miracles do exist. It’s something that we can’t get our head around. And yet there are people today who are still receiving miracles. Thank you that I serve a God who can perform miracles. Help me today in my unbelief, I pray for Jesus’ sake. Amen.