Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Caution: may have been exposed to miracles

I was wondering if you'd help me out....but I'm sure you won't because you don't have to and our relationship doesn't normally work that way and you have bigger things to worry about....

I'm guessing the way I said that didn't leave you feeling very honoured or inspired to help me, did it? Then why do we approach God that way?

I was brought up in a church tradition that suffers from a mild allergy to miracles. Nothing life-threatening, mind you, just enough of a reaction to keep us from tasting certain blessings. I've been to many prayer meetings where I wondered why we were even bothering, the people praying seemed so convinced that God wasn't going to do anything anyway.

I think the reason for the "rash" of doubt is that we've all experienced times when we felt strongly that we should pray for a miracle, but we didn't get it. We dared to believe and then were disappointed. So we change our theological diet to exclude most of the New Testament: Jesus and his followers' works of wonder, healing, deliverance and transformation. We give up on God far too soon and we miss seeing all the wonderful things God is doing all around us right now.

1 comment:

Monica said...

One of my favorite quotes this year...

"there is no use trying,” said alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.”_“i dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “when i was your age, i always did it for half an hour a day. why, sometimes i’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
–lewis carrol