You Are Guaranteed A Miracle

If you’ve been wondering if God really wants to intervene in your life, then wonder no more.

Of course God wants to intervene in your life. That’s what God does. He’s an intervening God.

We know this because Jesus said,

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)

We’re told to ask God to intervene, and we’re given an unrestricted promise that he’ll answer, with no fine print. You ask. God intervenes. Period. No hesitation, qualification, or ambiguity.

God Will Perform A Miracle

When I say God wants to intervene in your life, let me be absolutely clear what I’m talking about: I mean God wants to enter our time-space continuum and alter minds, hearts, physical bodies, events, atmospheric conditions, political systems, people groups, and anything else that is a part of the material universe so he can accomplish his purpose in your life.

I’m talking about what philosophers and theologians call a miracle.

And not just a “big” miracle. Everyday ones. Remember, Jesus was speaking to people like you and me when he first delivered those words. This wasn’t a philosophical discussion for him.

God is in the intervention business:

God wants to intervene in your marriage.
He wants to intervene in your kids’ third-grade teacher’s crappy attitude that is causing your child so much self-doubt.
God wants to intervene in your job search, your health scare, your problems with your neighbors, your car situation, your corporate deal that is causing you stress, and that huge tuition bill that is looming.

God Will Perform A Miracle In Your Life

Do you believe God does this? I know you probably think God can do things like this, as in that it is theoretically possible. That is not my question. Do you believe God actually can perform a miracle in your life?

Before you respond by saying, “I’ve tried asking God to intervene in my life and nothing happened,” look at what Jesus says right after he tells people to “ask and seek,”

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

God Is A Good Father.

No human parent, Jesus said, will play tricks on their kid when they’re hungry. This may not seem like a pertinent example to us, but remember Jesus was talking to people who live hand to mouth. They didn’t know from where their next meal was coming. If your kid is starving, and you give him a stone, and they bite into it, that’s a pretty evil act.

Now more than likely you’re not starving, but you’ve probably bitten into your fair share of rocks. You bite into a job that you think will be life-giving, and it breaks a few teeth. Or you try having children but can’t, and while others are carrying babies, you feel like you’re carrying around a boulder in your heart. If you’ve gone through the pain of divorce, you can probably write a book on the perils of marrying a snake.

I want you to notice three of Jesus’ words: how much more.

Those unfamiliar with the religious context in which Jesus taught might not be aware that what he is doing is attacking our objections about God by using a standard rhetorical technique used by rabbis of his time.

How Much More Is God Capable Of?

When Jesus was a young child the most popular rabbi in Israel was a man named Hillel (110 B.C. to 10 A.D.). Hillel is considered one of the most influential teachers in all of Jewish history. Scholars wonder if the story in Luke’s gospel about Jesus’ parents losing him in Jerusalem and finding him days later in the temple “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions” (Luke 2:41-46), is an allusion to Jesus meeting Hillel. Luke says, “Everyone who heard him was amazed at his answers” (Luke 2:47). Whether or not Jesus met the great Hillel in person and amazed him we’ll never know, but of one thing we are confident: Jesus certainly learned how to debate from him.

One of Hillel’s strategies for proving points about God comes from the Hebrew phrase “Qal Wahomer,” which when translated into English means “how much more?”

If you are debating someone about God and want to prove a point, a Qal Wahomer argument (“how much more?”) takes something small that everyone agrees on, and shows that if something applies to that less important situation, it will certainly apply to God.

God Is Capable Of Great Things

Like all great rabbis, the apostle Paul used the principle of Qal Wahomer (“how much more?”) when he tried to prove his points about Jesus:

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:9-10)

Elsewhere we see Jesus himself using the principal of Qal Wahomer (“how much more?”) when he rebuffed the Pharisees for condemning his choice to heal someone on the Sabbath:

What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. (Mt. 12:11-12)

The sheep and Sabbath illustration is a perfect example of using Qal Wahomer (“how much more?”) to prove a point. Jesus picks a small thing that everyone considers valuable at the time (a sheep) and compares it to something the Pharisees don’t agree upon as being valuable (human beings in pain on the Sabbath).

God Is Performing A Miracle In Your Life.

Understanding Qal Wahomer (“how much more?”) helps us understand what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7:

Jesus says that if parents like you and me are evil (compared to God), but we still know how to give good gifts to our kids, how much more will God give us good gifts if we just ask?

Of course God intervenes in our lives. It’s what God does. The simple fact is you are guaranteed to experience a miracle every time you pray.

The problem is that sometimes the miracles we pray for are not the miracles we end up receiving.

They will always be miraculous though and they will always be good.

Always.

Types Of Miracles

In chapter three of my book Second Guessing God I talk about the difference between what I call an “Instantaneous Miracle” – when God instantly answers prayers for the exact things we pray for and a “Perseverance Miracle” – when God chooses not to.

answer our prayers the way we wish but instead gives us miraculous strength to persevere under our problems.

Both are miraculous interventions.

Both are breathtaking to watch.

Given everything that’s been thrown at you in life and the way you’ve been holding up under it, you, my friend, are a breathtaking miracle to watch.

Press on.

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