Miracles that Testify

(By Dave, 10-15 min)

Scripture

Genesis 17: 15-22

God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.

Genesis 18:9-14

“ Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

“There, in the tent, ” he said.

Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

A curious response

In Genesis 12, Abram is told to move to a land he does not know. He does it. In Genesis 13, God tells Abram to walk the land that God has given him. He pitches his tent in the land and builds an altar to the Lord. In Genesis 15, the Lord comes to him in a vision and they have a conversation about Abram’s childless situation and future descendants. God reiterates a previous prediction of many descendants, makes a covenant to give specific lands to them, and informs Abram it will begin with a son of his flesh and blood. Again, Abram believes him and because he does God credits it to him as righteousness.

At the start of these interactions Abram was 75. He is now 99. For 24 years he heard from God through appearances or visions and believed everything he was told. He has a son, Ishmael, through Hagar who could represent the start of God’s predicted future for his offspring. But he is informed that Sarah will be the mother of a son from whom nations will rise and kings will come.

After 24 years of believing, Abram, now Abraham is incredulous. So incredulous he falls facedown laughing at the prediction. Abraham accepted the other predictions because they were entirely plausible and he had faith in God, but not this nature-defying silliness. Even God can’t make the old young. In chapter 18, Sarah laughs as well at something that simply cannot be.

Stories to contemplate

These days most parents walk their kids to the bus stop because it doesn’t seem safe to send them on their own. While the kids are chatting with each other so are the parents. Maria was one of these parents for us, and we became friends.

One morning she told us about her elderly mother who moved into Maria’s home for her final days. As the end approached, her mom was in one of the bedrooms upstairs with Maria. It was a beautiful day, and the sun was shining through the window.

      “How are you, Mom?”

      “I’m fine Honey,” she said smiling. “He’s here now.”

      “Who is here, Mom?” she asked seeing no one else in the room.” Maria described that she thought her mom was becoming delusional and the end was very close.

      “Jesus, sweetheart,” the old woman said. “He’s right over there.” She lifted an arm to point.

      “That’s good. I’m glad he’s here with you,” Maria said not wanting to ruin the poor woman’s peace with her own observation of an empty room.

Maria headed downstairs to get the gathered family sensing her mother’s time was short. As she passed by the window in the hallway an enormously bright light appeared and was gone. Maria wondered what it was because the sun was shining brightly and the light was much, much brighter. She made it downstairs, and the family was all abuzz looking through the windows. Did a plane crash? Was there a nuclear bomb, etc.? Maria called everybody’s attention to her and said they should go upstairs because Mom was close to passing.

When they entered the room, Maria’s mother had died. As she told the story Maria paused here. “Do you think it was Jesus leaving with my Mom?”

******

I had a friend Don who went to the church I attended years ago. We would run into each other before services sometimes while setting up chairs and tables. He pulled me aside one morning and told me a story. Don was driving through a neighborhood up a large hill. The car was quiet, and he was thinking about his day. Suddenly he heard a voice say: “Slow down.” He figured it must’ve been his radio, so he checked. It was off, but he turned it on and then off just to make sure. His attention returned to the road and once again he heard: “Slow down!“ This time the voice was a bit more emphatic. Again, Don fiddled with the dial on the radio, but it was still off, and his windows were up. As he got close to the top of the hill the car was filled with an emphatic command: “SLOW DOWN!”

Don moved his foot from accelerator to break and pushed as he crested the hill. A young boy was charging into the road away from his frantic, chasing mother who was screaming at him to stop. Don slammed on the brakes and stopped just before hitting the poor boy. The toddler’s mother scooped him up, holding him tightly. Don climbed out of the car and said to the woman: “Lady, today you got a miracle.” He recounted his drive up the hill to the relieved but shaken mother.

******

I was leaving for work one day in my normal hustle. The two-hour class I taught started at 8:00 a.m.  It took me about three hours to get ready for it, so I tried to get there by 5:00. This necessitated a 4:30 departure that I accomplished every day without disturbing my family.

On this day, and only this day, my wife delayed me. A concern caused her to get up and tell me to be careful as I went to work. Okay, Sweetie, was my reply. I guess she delayed me by maybe 30 seconds.

The trip to work took me on an interstate that passes right next to the city. My exit was a long ramp onto one of the city streets. On this day a confused driver was coming right at me on the exit ramp. Apparently, the person believed he/she was on an entrance ramp and was accelerating anticipating merging onto the interstate. We both were on the ramp far enough apart that we could take evasive maneuvers, but it was close. The ramp was wide enough for two cars to get by each other at the place where we met. The driver must’ve figured it out because there was no news of an interstate accident later that day.

Had I been there 30 seconds earlier, I would’ve encountered the driver at the curve in the ramp close to the city. A place not observable from the rest of the ramp and where there was only room for one car. It would’ve been a head on collision for sure.

What would Abraham think?

What would a contemporary Abraham make of these stories if I explained them this way: The Savior of the world and Maria’s mother left the room together and their presence outshone the son. Don heard the voice of God because the boy was to be saved and my wife was awakened because I and the other driver were to be saved. What would Abraham think if we told him these stories are testimonies to God’s ongoing involvement in our world and demonstrate His glory. Each event occurred so that they would be passed on as a small part of building the kingdom of God. Would Abraham fall facedown laughing or would he believe?

Given his response in Scripture, I suspect he would find them laughable or at least be skeptical. Because he had faith in God, Abraham was willing to accept the plausible even when the predictions were grandiose. But the supernatural caused him doubt. Those doubts would be bolstered here because there are plausible natural explanations for the three stories above. Maybe there was a rare out of the blue lightning strike close to Maria’s house. A noise at the top of the hill was misinterpreted by Don and my wife’s rising early was just a coincidence. I suspect Abraham and Sarah would be more inclined to believe these plausible explanations than to believe God was acting supernaturally.

Perhaps we have the same predisposition and as a result overlook God’s voice and work in the world. I told you the three stories above because I believe they were God’s hand in the world and should be shared. I wonder if you have a similar story. I ask because every time I tell one of these stories to someone of faith, invariably they have one of their own. If I’m right about this, then God is revealing himself to us all the time. We then leave these stories unused locked up in the tool sheds of our minds when we should be telling everyone who will listen in the same way the author of Genesis told us of Sarah’s son.

Why in the shed?

Why do we let stories that have a miraculous tone lie dormant? Maybe it’s because supernatural events don’t happen often, so it’s hard to believe they will or did. The reticence of people to believe Jesus was resurrected is evidence of that as was the laughter of Abraham and Sarah.  Don opened his story of not hitting the small boy by saying: “I know this sounds crazy, Dave, but…”. Supernatural things don’t happen except to crazy people.

Secondly, we’ve lost the awe we used to have for an omniscient God. Sarah is reprimanded for this. When the 90-year-old laughed at giving birth, God challenged her asking why she did not believe. Is there anything too hard for the Lord? I wonder if we need to receive a similar rebuke: Is there anything God will not do to call people to a relationship with Him and to further His kingdom on earth?

Finally, we are preoccupied with the goals of our lives. Abraham and Sarah were focused on building their family, leaving a legacy, and surviving. Hearing that their goals are dependent on the supernatural is a distraction. Abraham expresses it nicely by asking can’t you just bless Ishmael who is already here? In other words, can we just get the job done without supernatural pipedreams. I think we do this too and it pushes our minds past the kinds of stories I recounted to you here as our focus is on living rather than the glory of God.

Tell it brothers and sisters

Today’s Scripture reveals human predilections in the face of a miraculous God. Like us, our religious ancestors were less inclined to believe the miraculous and more inclined to believe in God’s work through plausible natural experiences. Although the Lord works through these, a devotion to this as God’s only mode of action can dull one’s awareness of His omniscient power, a power Sarah was rebuked for ignoring. In tandem with or perhaps because of these two predilections we keep our attention on our everyday lives and place in storage tales of those experiences that may have a Godly miraculous interpretation.

Do you have one of these? If so, consider sharing it with another person. I suspect if we all did this, we would be rather surprised at God’s ongoing activity in the world around us. Abraham and Sarah didn’t believe a 90-year-old could have a child. Prior to Maria’s story I didn’t believe Jesus might come in person to someone who was dying. Prior to Don’s story, I didn’t believe God might intervene miraculously on behalf of a little child, and I surely didn’t think God would act to save me and the other person on the interstate ramp. Now all of these seem quite possible. They testify to me that God is at work and cares not about the natural order that inescapably binds us. He will work within and outside of that order as He sees fit and leaves it to us to see His ever-present hand.  

Maybe I was exposed to these three stories to prepare me for today. With them I could make a case for you to spread your own miraculous stories of God. Tell someone even if you start the story like Don did: “I know this sounds crazy but ….”. If you don’t have a story with a miraculous tinge, then recount to someone how else God has acted in your life. Were we to all talk about God’s handiwork, the body of believers might gain a larger perspective about the pervasiveness of God’s presence.

As a former scientist and educator, I know there is a risk of interpreting the simply unexplained as miraculous or seeing God’s hand where it is not. But the words of God to Sarah stick with me: “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” Apparently not, because I should be dead. I did not die in a head-on collision so many years ago, but instead kissed my prescient wife goodbye and lived on to write this piece to you today. Maybe there is a reason for that.

Many blessings to you all and may God be with you this and every day of your faith journey.

Dave