How often do I survey the happenings around me and miss God’s handiwork?
And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.
Ezekiel 17:24 – ESV
Currently, I’m reading the book Bruchko with my kids and chapter 19 highlighted how as the Motilone people embraced Jesus, they cried out to Him with real faith that He would respond miraculously. And, when He did, the miracles did not surprise them, because they expected them.
I find myself often praying with little expectation. Worse than that, when something does “work out” the way I had prayed for, I give mental credit to medicine, hard work, time, people, or coincidence. This chapter in Bruchko, piled on top of all these passages from Scripture are convicting me of my high view of people and my minimizing view of God.
But with Jesus, there can be real change. Not just spiritual change. Not just change by and by. Real change, now, with visible power. He is the source of all change. He is the God of everyday miracles.
Bruchko by Bruce Olson p. 162.
The everyday miracles, the huge, life-changing miracles. All of them, return to Him. He earns our praise all day long with His work in our lives and those around us. I need to remember to return my thanks to Him and acknowledge all that He is doing on a daily basis.
Even in 2 Samuel we see how God orchestrated events to bless Israel, to shape military alliances, and to punish nations that rejected Him.
And when all the kings who were servants of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with Israel and became subject to them. So the Syrians were afraid to save the Ammonites anymore.
2 Samuel 10:19 ESV
God’s plans prevail in the military exploits of ancient kingdoms and in my daily life as a housewife in modern day America.
- Did I wake up this morning – alive and breathing?
- Do I have friends and family?
- Do I have food – physical and spiritual?
- Did I experience comfort today?
- Have the friends on my prayer list been protected through the ordeal they face?
- Has another friend made it safely home from a recent hospital stay?
- Did I have healing words of encouragement for a desperate text that came my way last week?
Yes, yes, and yes again.
God has been there. Working, responding, often providing before I even knew to ask. It has been all Him. I can take no credit, and have no right to rationalize His supernatural involvement in this world by diminishing the results with “logical” explanations.
4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God . . . Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, . . . And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:4-5, 12, 18 ESV
The result of properly attributing God’s power and presence is increased boldness, hope, and transformation. He hears our prayers and walks closely to those that hope in Him.
Hear my cry, O God,
Psalm 61:1-3 ESV
listen to my prayer;
2 from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I,
3 for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.
Sixty-six books in a year 