Today I'll be studying miracles and God's providence. The first thing to note is what miracles are and what God's providence is. Miracles are like people coming back from the dead or God literally speaking to someone. An example of God's providence is a child that has no more cancer even though all the doctors said there was no way or someone living through a car wreck that should have killed them. The word 'providence' means foresight or making provision beforehand. For example, God made something happen through natural means, or gave it the ability to happen. Maybe in the car wreck, the car hit the tree just right so that the man didn't die. Maybe the child with cancer had something happen in her body that caused the cancer cells to die. Now, we can't just throw those explanations out. There are some things that science cannot explain even things that are within the laws of nature. For example, if a man and woman had the same life-threatening injury, the woman would have the better chances of survival. Things happen in the human body that we just don't understand.
Just because something is hard to believe or understand does not make it a miracle. Miracles are things that only God can do. Things that are beyond the laws of nature. It isn't a miracle that a woman showed up at the right moment after the man hit the tree, and was able to pull him out of the car before it lit on fire. That is God's providence; a chain reaction of events that led the woman to be there at the right time. In this day and age, the word 'miracle' is thrown around way too easily. I looked up examples of modern day miracles and it boggles my mind that these people think that God's providence is actually a miracle. No! People are mixing them up!
There are people out there that claim to be 'healers' and that would be considered a miracle - if miracles still happened today (and they don't). I read something about a man that expected to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and that no surgeries had fixed him. He met a 'healer' and was supposedly healed. Psychology! Think about this: why do placebo groups exist? To see if peoples' conditions get better even though they aren't really taking the medicine. They think they are, so they believe, and they get better like the doctors said the medicine would make them, too. It's the same with this so called 'healer'. Maybe the man in the wheelchair believed so strongly that he'd be okay and would walk again - so he did. Something happened in the mind and body to make it possible. That is not a miracle.
Another thing that is called a miracle but is God's providence, is the safe landing of the plane on the Hudson with the pilot, Sully. He was able to safely land the plane and people called this a miracle. Can you believe that? No! This man had the experience of planes and tried his best to save these people's lives and he did. But just because its amazing that something like this happened doesn't make it a miracle. Remember: Miracles happen only from the hand of God Himself and are beyond the laws of nature. One last example of a 'miracle' is the 33 Chilean miners. Yes just like the one before, it was amazing thing that happened and that they all lived but that does not make it a miracle. God's providence made it possible for them to all figure out together how to survive, and then to be rescued. Dramatic or unexplainable events are often given the label of miracles, but this just isn't true.
God has said he will answer our prayers, and just because He does, doesn't make it a miracle. It is Him fulfilling His promise. Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matthew 21:22 And whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 9:29 "And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” Philippians 4:6-7 "do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." God already knows what will happen, and what is best. It happens because He lets it be so.
God's providence can be noted in one verse that I have found: 2 Peter 1:3 “Seeing that His divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue.” It is GOD who gives us life and allows us to keep living. It is GOD who gives us good things and allows the setting up of the chain of events that change our lives. Another verse about God's providence and will is Hebrews 2: 3-4 “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? which having at first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.” Again, note how God has said 'His own will'.
Now, to explain why modern miracles do not exist... Look at 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 "For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues." Now look at the next chapter verse eight mostly (1 Corinthians 13:8-13) "Charity never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." God has said that there will be no more of these miracles as mentioned in the previous chapter. Yet, God's will and God's providence still exist.
Hebrews 13:20-21 "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." I think God here is saying that He makes a way for people to do His will. Like the example I said in the beginning, God made it to where the woman would be there to pull the man out of the car before it was lit on fire. Maybe that man had something God needed him to fulfill, like giving the gospel to someone that may bring more good to the world. It is all because of God and HIS WILL. God's providence is something different than miracles. Proverbs 3: 5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." Remember that just because we do not understand what or why something or how something happened, just know God knows and it was God's will. Acknowledge that God directs the paths and is all-knowing.
Love, Emily.
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