Miracles: What Does it Take?

How often have you hoped and prayed for them, whether for something as frivolous as our favorite team winning a game, or as vitally important as the health of family members or friends?

Maybe you have even had those prayers answered, and felt incredibly blessed and joyful because of it. And yet, doesn't it often seem as if you are beating your head against a brick wall? As if no one is listening and no one will answer? And each time our prayer seems to go unanswered makes it that much harder for us to pray the next time.

Why are miracles so few and far between? Does God pick and choose on a whim which prayers will be answered and which will not? Or is it our fault? Are we not doing enough? What do we need to do to get the miraculous help we need? There are several things that come to mind.

The first is a simple, one word answer: believe. This is not to say that you did not believe enough if you have had prayers go unanswered . I do not believe God measures our faith before deciding whether or not to grant our request. I do believe, however, that our belief must be real. Often the way we mentally define our belief can keep us from truly believing.

In one of the webcomics I read, a scientist is taken from the normal world, where everything is predictable and comfortable, to the realm of the Fae, where belief becomes reality. Then his friend, the Fae who brought him there, starts walking down stairs that are actually just discs floating in mid-air. These are his thoughts before he steps out onto the stairs: "So I just need to believe I can step on these strange disc things and they will hold up despite-" and he falls.

So often this is the form our faith takes: "I'm going to believe, despite what science tells me, despite what's happened before, despite-" and our "faith" drowns in doubts before it even begins.

In Ephesians, faith is portrayed as a shield "which will help you quench all the fiery darts of the evil one."

In Mark Jesus says to a man asking Him to heal his child:' "If you can believe, all things are possible to those who believe." Immediately, the father of the child exclaimed, tears running down his face, "Lord, I believe, help me with my unbelief." ' And Jesus heals his son.

Miracles do not require perfect faith, they don't even require mustard-seed-size faith, necessarily. That's only if you want to move a mountain or something equivalent. But that brings us to the second, and - for most people - the harder requirement for miracles. And that is surrender.

God will not work in a way that takes away our free will. And most of us have an incredibly difficult time bringing ourselves even to humble ourselves enough to pray, much less to surrender the situation to God. And yet that is what is what is required of us.

In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed that God would make another way. He prayed a long time, hard enough that He sweat blood. And yet, at the end, what did He say? "Not my will, but Yours be done, Abba."

He gave control of the situation, the final say, to God. He took himself out of the captain's chair in his life, and said, effectively, "I know that you know what's best better than I do, and so I'm giving up this situation to you. Whatever you decide, I won't try to change it or complain afterwords or during." That's hard to say. That's incredibly hard to say, and even harder to mean it.

Hollywood doesn't get it right very often, but it has a couple of times recently. In the movie Evan Almighty, God - played by Morgan Freeman - tells Evan Baxter, a senator, to build an ark, and to tell anyone who asks why, that a flood is coming. No matter what Evan does, God seems to put things in place that gives him the nudge he needs every time he tries to turn away.

His wife leaves him, taking their three sons. When they stop to eat, they hear people making fun of Evan, and Evan's wife seems conflicted. Then God, disguised as a waiter, comes up and talks to her. He asks her, "If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does He put them in a situation where they can become more patient? Say someone prayed for their family to grow closer to one another.(something she had prayed earlier in the movie) Would God make them grow closer, or put them in a situation where they could grow as a family?"

This is a very true portrayal of how God often works. We may not get what we want when we pray, but we will often get what we need. And when God does give us what we pray for, it often turns out differently from how we wanted it to happen. But that's what surrender entails. It means accepting not just what God gives us, but the way He decides to give it to us.

In the book Paladin of Souls - a fantasy book set in a very different world - Dowager Princess Ista, who has fought the will of her gods ever since - from her perspective - they failed to help her, sees something that changes her mind.

A young noblewoman, who has been fighting against her husband's self-sacrifice, is offered a chance to help him. It will not help him return to her safely, it will merely increase his chances of success. She screams and wails, "No, no, no, no!" and yet, just before the chance is withdrawn, she turns her head to the side, and whispers, "Yes."

Ista realizes she has been fighting what might be the best for everyone simply because it was not what she wanted. She prays that her own quiet assent may be heard over all her screams of denial, and her prayer is answered.

It doesn't matter to God how many times we say no, how many times we deny Him, as long as in the end we do turn to Him. At the end of Evan Almighty, after a flood has come, and the ark he built saved his family and many other people from dying, Evan says to God "I fought you every step of the way." God smiles and says, "But you did it."

We don't have to be perfect to receive God's grace and mercy. Indeed, were we perfect we would not need it. We simply need to acknowledge that we are powerless and need his help.

There is another aspect of miracles that I have very rarely heard addressed, and yet may be the most important. And that is the importance of being a miracle.

In Paladin of Souls, Ista asks one of the gods "When I wanted something - when I prayed on my face, arms outflung, in tears and abject terror - for years - where were You then? Where were the gods the night my son Tiedez died?"

The god answers: "The Son of Autumn sent many men in answer to your prayers, but they turned aside in their paths and never arrived. He could not force them to change their wills or their steps. Now someone else prays in despair as dark as yours, and you are the one who has been sent. Will you turn aside as well, the way your son's deliverence did?"

And that is the overlooked portion of miracles. God will not force good things on us. People like to focus on God's power, but they don't like to focus on His limitations. True, they are self imposed limitations, but they are limitations none the less.

In all the Old Testament, God used people to convey His blessings and gifts of life and healing. In the New Testament, Jesus was God, but He was also a man, and so He could have denied God's will and refused to heal some poeple, or raise some from the dead. But He was surrendered to God's will in such a way that even though the miracles did not benefit Him, indeed, they often overwhelmed Him, He still did them. That is our example. We must open ourselves not only to be blessed, but also to bless others.