IF I COULD ONLY HAVE A MIRACLE
Ruth 2:20a,b “The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “The Lord has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.”
Nomi’s husband and two sons that had died while in the land of Moab. She had come back to her hometown of Bethlehem in hopes of finding some help just to survive. One of her daughter-in-laws by the name of Ruth came back with her to help take care of her. Back then a widow depended on any children she may have had or a relative in helping her get by. Because of her sad state, she had given up on God and even resented what she felt he had done to her. Naomi was at the bottom of the barrell looking up, and she felt God had slammed the lid shut on her. She had come to the point that she didn’t have enough hope to hope she could ever have hope again.
Have you ever been to this place in your life? Maybe you are there right now! Well, I hope not. Being sad and even at a point of despair is bad enough, but to have no hope is pretty much the end of the line. This is the point where a person gives up the thought that they can not even hope that God will somehow come to help. Well, here is some truth for you today. God does care, and he is still in the miracle working business. He will help in every area of our life when we seek forgiveness of our sins through Jesus and have him come into our heart. It is certainly true that God can not reward disobedience and sin, if he did we would never turn from our sin and get right with him through his Son. But once we trust in Jesus it is simply a matter of asking for his help. James 4:2 tells us that we have not because we ask not. God is committed to respecting our free will and our asking him for help is the act of faith that he is looking for in this. Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Heb 11:6)
Sometimes when we are at the bottom of the barrell and without hope we need a friend to do what it seems impossible for us to do and that is to still have hope, faith and trust. This is where Jesus and the Holy Spirit help us by interceding for us, but we can also have other brothers and sisters in Christ pray for us as well. There are those prayer warriors out there that God has given the gift of intercession. They are not more holy or righteous, because all holiness and righteousness comes through Jesus. What they do have is a firm belief and trust that God is a good God and he does want to help. When we can no longer even hope, they can and will pray for us.
I hope know you know how Naomi felt when God came through for her. It is almost like an atomic bomb of happiness and relief has just went off in your heart. God has not forsaken you! The reality of his love for you has embraced you with the answer of your great need. Before I became a Christian I can remember telling my dad that I wish I could have seen Jesus do a miracle. I guess in my thinking God was out of the miracle working business, and I could never know him in a personal way. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Jesus is real and just as willing to do miracles for people today as when he walked on the earth.
I have been a Christian for 42 years now. I have seen and heard of so many miracles Jesus has done in that time. It’s not a matter of our goodness, but his goodness. I believe he really wants to help us probably more than we are willing to ask. Sometimes we think it will just get better on its own, or we can fix it. Well, maybe it would and maybe we can, but who are we going to praise when it is done? God wants to glorify Jesus in our life, but we need to ask for his help. James 4:2 tells us that we have not because we ask not. God is committed to respecting our free will. Our prayer becomes an act of faith, and releases our will to his will being done. Without that act of faith, we can not please God. (Heb 11:6). Granted sometimes God will not answer our prayer the way we may want, but he loves us and will answer it according to what is best. We can always count on this, and because of this I always have peace in my prayers. I am confident that even I pray incorrectly, he will always answer correctly.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for never leaving or forsaking us. Thank you that you always will help us no matter what. We want you to know in our prayers that we always want your will to be done in answering them. We love you and trust you! It’s in Jesus name we say this.
