Miracles, what are they?
I think that miracles aren’t as “amazing” as we sometimes think. I mean, they are amazing but it’s not like God is changing something into anything new, or making something into something it shouldn’t be. See I realized the other day that when God does a miracle all he is doing is returning that thing to it’s natural order. He is fixing it. What I mean is that the world was created perfect and only because of sin do we have disease, death, disfigurations etc. So when God performs a miracle it is really just him fixing the person or situation and restoring it to the way it was created.
This is the same thing that people do whenever they fix a computer and return it to it’s natural state, or fix a broken garment, or repair a car. These items were created working and when we fix them we are doing “miracles”.
Now all of what I said doesn’t mean God’s miracles are any less amazing. It’s still awesome to think that he raises people from the dead, heals the sick, finds the lost, and loves us, even though we are sinners. Plus there are the miracles like walking on water and turning water to wine and splitting the red sea in half, and I don’t think those miracles are exactly returning something to the natural order. In fact they would be what I said miracles aren’t earlier God changing something into something new.
So I, for one, am still in awe and fear of God. His miracles are still amazing to me!
November 7th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Finally a post! And just as deep and profound as I have come to expect. Keep up the thinking and the writing!
BTW- I totally agree that sometimes we relegate “miracles” to the realm of the supernatural..i.e. when God intervenes in some way which we can’t understand inside of our natural laws of physics, etc. But when we focus on those kinds of miracles (which of course God can do) we miss the more “humble” miracles, the daily intervention of God in our lives in ways specifically ordered by Him to draw us closer to Him.
November 9th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
= : ) i’m glad you brought up the red sea later because when you first said God is returning things to how they should be the red sea definitely popped into my head and i laughed.
interesting thought though…
…perhaps miracles like water to wine etc. also follow the same thing. just in a more far sighted less immediate sense. they are part of the process of returning things to their natural order. like we’ve broken our world so bad it takes more than just returning things to fix it…