The Miracle of Restraint

A lot of people have been asking me lately why there are no miracles anymore. Why does God just not show himself by performing a huge miracle?

“If I saw a talking ass Zaq, I would believe.” (I was pretty tempted to tell this person to look in a mirror…)

Now as much as some would like to say there are no miracles, I would like to disagree. There are countless miracles in our world. Plenty of people have been cured of illnesses with no medical treatment other than prayer. How about some of the survivors of 9-11 attacks on the world trade center? Several people lived for days under thousands of pounds of rubble. Let us not forget about every day miracles when families are brought back together, when people get through there depression and when people forgive others through Jesus!

Yes there are miracles! Now I know some of you are thinking, “Well that is some cool stuff but what about the big stuff? Why doesn’t God just perform some huge miracle and shut up his skeptics?”

I think one of the biggest reasons why we do not see big miracles today is because it is not broadcasted by the media. Nice stories that have a happy ending do not sale, they want tragedy and horror. Look at the Quecreek mine accident in 2002. There are mine accidents all over the US ever year but this one was different. It was declared a National Disaster. No offence to any of the nine who were trapped in the mine but there are bigger mine accidents every year that do not get attention like this. The reason why is because those other accidents have glimmers of hope. This accident looked hopeless but miraculously they were found. If you do not remember let me remind you.

The nine where trapped somewhere in the mine, the rescuers did not know where. They had an educated guess but knew the only way to get to them was to drill 240 feet into the earth. It was a race against the clock because the longer they were in the ground the better chance they would die, in addition the water in the mine was rising creating a watery tomb. 77-hours later, miraculously, the miners rose from the mine.

Did you forget about that?

Jesus had every opportunity to perform huge miracles. He could have gone to entire cities and snapped his fingers to heal all there sick, but he did not. He could have called fire and hail from the skies to make people believe, but he did not. He could have flown around like superman saying “hey look at me”, but he did not.

Why? Well that is the miracle of restraint. You see Jesus could have done anything huge to get followers (actually he was tempted too) but he did not. The reason why is because that is not the relationship he wants us to have with him. If he just did huge awesome things, would we follow him because we wanted to have a relationship with him or because he was cool? Yancey puts it best in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew.

"More amazing is his refusal to perform and to overwhelm. God's terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that he granted us the power to live as though he did not exist, to spit in his face, to crucify him. I believe God insists on such restraint because no pyrotechnic displays of omnipotence will achieve the response he desires. Although power can force obedience, only love can summon a response of love, which is the one thing God wants from us and the reason he created us."

God has given us every reason to believe in him. It is up to you to find him.

Call me crazy...

The toughest part of being a Christian follower for me is living in this world. Do not get me wrong, I am not going to go commit suicide to go be with my heavenly father and I am not praying to have my life taken away from me before it is my time. What I am saying is I live in a world that is not just Christ followers and that kills me. It is the way God made things and I am not questioning why he did this but it is hard. What is even harder is I have friends right now if Jesus would come they would not be in Heaven with me. I cannot stand it but it is reality.

The biggest reason most of my friends or people I have encountered do not believe is because they believe there is not enough proof.

“Zaq, if your mighty God could just show himself to me I would believe.”

While being a follower of Christ is about having faith, I do not believe you have to have perfect faith to believe. If that was true then a handful of people would be “true Christians.” Jesus rebuked his disciples for having little faith and told them if they had “faith the size of a mustard seed” they could move mountains. I guess you could take the first twelve of the list.

What I am getting at is you do not have to have “perfect faith” to be a Christian. You can have doubts, questions and struggles and still be a Christian. There are no parameters to follow Christ, no set list of rules you have to follow to be a Christian. God has just given us guidelines for a successful and happy life and as his followers we should follow them.

Recently I have been asked, “If there was no Heaven would you still be a Christian.”

Yes. At first I made the question complicated, I over thought it. At the time I still said yes but now I believe I have a better reason. You see my life, my walk with Jesus Christ is not goal oriented. On the rare occasion when I do not give in to temptation, it is not because I am afraid of being rejected from Heaven. No not all but rather because I do not want to do that to Jesus. He died on the cross for me so I could be without sin but to consciously sin anyway would be like punching Jesus in the stomach. It is like when your best friend asks you not to do something but do it anyway, it is selfish. I am sure it has happened to you, how did you feel?

I do not want to do that to Jesus. Call me crazy (it will not be the first time…) but Jesus is my best friend and I do not want to do that to him.

Skillet Yours to Hold Acoustic

This song really explains me lately...

Religious Radicals and Terrorist...

Early this year when I was talking to my Dad about the up coming election I told him how I liked some of Obama's ideas. I should have known better because my Dad is very conservative and this launched us into an argument.

"It's not because he is black I don't like him, it's because he is Muslim."

Continuing with our conversation I asked my Dad if he knew anything about the Muslim culture and he responded by saying he knew that, "a group of them where radicals..."

Which is true, there is a group of Muslims who are radical. There are a group of Muslims who are terrorist and fight for what they believe in but how narrow is that view?

I asked my Dad if he thought that any Christians where radicals. He replied by saying that there where, that "Holy Rollers" and Skinheads where radicals (I agree with Skinheads but some would probably consider me a "Holy Roller" but radical is not necessarily a bad term). Then I asked him if he thought any Christians where terrorist.

"No."

I just walked away to avoid a huge confrontation. As far as I am concerned the War on Terror is terrorism. We are asking God for providence the same way the Terrorist asked Allah for providence on 9-11. What happened to loving our enemies?

We are no better than Osama him self.