My family attends a local Assembly of God church here in Idaho. At Church, some gal came up and offered the Church the opportunity to go on a short term missions trip to Africa.
Its might be a wonderful opportunity for us. I used to be a missionary with YWAM. This was several years ago.
I have always wanted to get back into missions. My daughter is a fairly typical 8 year old. Well, she is better than typical. She loves God and was saved when she was 6. But she is typical in the sense that she is spoiled by the abundance that we have here in America. She does not know what its like to be poor and not have access to cell phones, computers, and anything she wants to eat anytime she wants to eat it.
Our daughter wants to go. She is excited about it. She picked up a love for other cultures and curiosity from me.
My wife has always wanted to go to Africa. So this trip seems to fit the bill.
The trip is going to be expensive. We just finished our taxes and are expecting a really nice refund. We could certainly say that getting this refund money is a miracle that will all but pay for our missions trip.
Now we just need to figure out if God really wants us to use this money to go on this trip or do the more logical thing. We have amazed a little credit card debt from Christmas. We also need to do some things around the house and such. This money would be perfect for that. So the dilemma begins.
Is it more logical to spend 6 grand for a 7 day trip to Africa or spend it on making our lives here better by paying off bills? Of course in the end, we need to do what God is telling us to do.
But this leads me to a question in my mind. I could say that getting this refund from our taxes is a miracle. The one that we have been looking for to pay for our missions trip. But this tax refund is one that we worked for. Its money that the government owes us. So does that really make it a miracle?
When I think of miracles, I think of something that came out of nowhere. Like Israel when they fled from Egypt. They were led around by a pillar of fire. The Red Sea parted before them so they could walk on dry land. I think of the burning bush that Moses saw on the mountain of God. I think of all those plagues of Egypt. These are examples of blow-your-mind, out-of-thin-air, impossible to explain otherwise, flat out miracles.
A miracle like this would be if God send us a check for 6 grand in the mail, or had someone call us up on the phone that we didn't even know and tell us that they were paying the 6 grand for us to go on the missions trip. Or if the dog were digging in the backyard and dug up a lock box, which contained 6 grand. Something like that would fit this definition of a draw-dropping, mind blowing, out-of-no-where, bonifide miracle.
But what we see most of the time are everyday miracles. The fact that I wake up every day is a miracle. The fact that no one anywhere has pushed the button and blown us all to hades is a miracle. I have a poor diet. So the fact that I have a good metabolism so I don't weigh 500 pounds is a miracle. And on and on I could go. These are everyday miracles, so we really don't pay them much mind. They are so common that we don't even think of them as miracles at all.
Then there are things that are miraculous but can be explained by circumstances, or life. For example, a while back, I got a check in the mail for $1200. This check was completely unexpected. So it seemed to fit the definition of a miracle. But when I looked at the check, it was from a company that I used to work for. It was back pay that they owed me.
So, since I can explain it as normal life, does this mean that it was not really a miracle?
I think that God does things this way on purpose. If it was that easy, it would not require any going to God for these things. I don't think that God does these Mind-Blowing, out of no where miracles too much anymore. Why? Cause, they dont work to foster faith. For an example of this, you only have to look as far as Israel when God took them out of Egypt. God did more mind blowing miracles for them than at any other time except when Jesus walked the earth.
Israel saw 1st hand all these mighty miracles, yet they doubted God at every turn. If we look at the miracles that Jesus did, we see the same things. The very people that received those miracles are the same ones that put him to death. Mind blowing, bonfide miracles are not really that good for getting people to believe.
So maybe God went to plan B. Or perhaps he had this plan all along. Most miracles we see today can be explained away somehow. They were due to natural phenomena, normal circumstances, doctors, etc...
Even most, or perhaps all, of those miracles that we thought were the huge bonfide ones of the Bible can be explained. I have heard it said that all of the plagues of Egypt had natural explanations. So perhaps this is the way it has always been. Perhaps God has and always will work through the natural. What we call "The natural" is after all his domain as well.
But I think the bottom line to this is just how much did God intervene to cause that miracle to happen? Or did God intervene at all? If God did not intervene, but left it to something that he already created or set in motion, can we still call it a miracle?
When I got that check for $1200, did God intervene to force that company to send that money to me? Or was it just a circumstance that happened because that company owned me that money? Or does it even matter?
Perhaps no matter if God intervened directly or not, its still a miracle. Or is it that a miracle has to be defined as a direct intervention by God and is one of those Mind-blowing, out of no-where things?
If we determine that God has to directly intervene in order for it to really be a miracle, how do we know that? How can we know for sure that God did it?
So going back to my original problem of going on this short term missions trip to Africa, how can I know what kind of miracle getting this tax return money was, or if it was a miracle at all? Perhaps it was just money that the feds owed us.
But no matter how you define this, does it make it any less of a God thing?
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