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Divine Interventions: Exploring the Reality of Miracles Today
43 Plays6 months ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez and Pastor Ridley Barron dive into the intriguing concept of miracles, exploring both historical and contemporary perspectives within the Christian faith. Their discussion examined the doctrinal debate between cessationism and continuationism, the significance of miracles beyond mere validation of divine power, and the profound purposes they may serve in glorifying God. They also addressed the skepticism often associated with miraculous events, including why some miracles like limb regeneration do not commonly occur, and how such instances relate to God's ultimate will. Throughout their sermon, they emphasized the importance of maintaining faith, seeking genuine signs of God's work, and the role of prayer in experiencing and understanding miracles.
Timestamps:
00:00 Most people doubt modern-day miracles.
05:20 Pray with confidence, understand God's heart.
07:02 Practicing faith and healing through repeated prayer.
10:44 God works in slow motion, shaping character.
15:45 Wealth reduces reliance on faith in society.
19:30 Faith moves mountains, miracles need purpose.
21:22 Seek answers and comfort in God's mystery.
23:36 Worship is our response to God's actions.
29:46 Acknowledging pain and seeking purpose through faith.
31:29 Faith in Jesus over chasing after miracles.
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Transcript
Introduction to Miracles with Pastor Ridley Baron
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to Scripture Unfiltered, which is the podcast of Grove Hill Church. I'm here today with Ridley Baron, the pastor of the church, to kind of break down the last Sunday sermon, which was on the topic of miracles out of the book of Acts. And today, Ridley, I'm excited to talk about three different questions for you. Like they're not related at all, but to me, they were exciting. So I'm excited to jump into these.
00:00:29
Speaker
Okay. So we'll see where this conversation goes. And I didn't prep you for any of it. So I'm like, here we go. Hey, thanks, Dan. Yep.
00:00:40
Speaker
So miracles are as a fun topic for me because I feel like miracles are all over the place. And you did a really good job in the sermon covering all kinds of aspects of miracles and why we don't experience miracles. So it was hard for me to actually find, I'm like, okay, what can I actually ask to dig deeper into miracles? Cause you did such a well-rounded job of covering it. I'm like, sometimes I'm like, is he anticipating what kind of questions I'm going to ask in the podcast? I don't know if we're at that point yet, but it's probably getting there.
00:01:09
Speaker
I'm trying, I'm trying.
Do Christians Truly Believe in Miracles?
00:01:12
Speaker
Today I wanted to start off with a fun one is that I find, I have to ask you the questions, do you think we as Christians even really believe when we're praying for miracles that miracles will happen? I would say most of us do not. We have a skepticism about it. I think we want to believe in it. I think we really do.
00:01:37
Speaker
And I don't think it's because we don't believe they didn't happen in the Bible. I think most of us believe they happened then. I think there's two reasons why we don't believe them as much nowadays. Some of us believe that we've... I don't know if we would put it this way, but we kind of believe in our heads. We've advanced far beyond where they were in the Bible. So now miracles just don't happen. We have explanations for them or something.
00:02:04
Speaker
I also think there's this guilty side of us that goes, I don't know that God would hear my prayers and do a miracle for me. We live with such guilt and I think that's what Christ had in mind when he said, you know, I've come to give you some freedom from all that guilt and you don't need to carry that weight around and we just don't know how to let that go so we can experience the freedom Christ has for us.
00:02:30
Speaker
Have you ever had a time when you, you prayed for a miracle, but half heartedly and then God delivered anyway? Ooh. I don't know that I ever did half heartedly and saw one delivered. I could be wrong now. I have prayed with others where I know that my prayers were kind of like, eh, I don't know if this is going to happen. And it did happen, but I believe it was because of the faith of the other people praying, not because of me. Yeah. But no, I don't remember ever.
00:03:00
Speaker
praying a prayer with doubt in my mind where I actually saw God do anything incredible. Have you ever prayed fervently, believing in full faith, almost expecting like, this has already happened, like God's already delivered, I just haven't seen it yet and then it didn't happen. Oh yeah, I've had that happen as well. And you know, that's that point where we have to reconcile our idea of what's best with God's idea of what's best. Yeah.
00:03:26
Speaker
We pray fervently because we think that's the answer that would bring him greatest glory and make everything right. He has something else in mind.
00:03:33
Speaker
So I want to circle back around to that in a different part of this conversation, but I want to linger a little bit more on what to do about the fact that I find that even I, like I, and I've seen in many different places have found that like you pray for healing, but it's not like you're actually, it's almost like a hope than it is a prayer.
Strengthening Faith to Expect Miracles
00:03:55
Speaker
Yes. You know? Yes.
00:03:57
Speaker
I was challenged in it maybe back in my early twenties. There was a ministry and I can't recommend this ministry because I find that there's way too many bizarre things that go on in there. But for all that, there was one fascinating thing is that they were really into healing miracles specifically. They'd even send young people to go hang up by the emergency room all night and go after it. Which to me, I'm like, you know, that seems kind of weird. But at the same time, I'm like, well,
00:04:27
Speaker
If faith is a muscle, they're certainly working it out a lot. Absolutely. Yeah, no doubt. So what can we do to strengthen that faith, um, in order to actually get to the point when we pray, we're like, okay with it not happening. Cause we kind of have to, God's going to be gone and he's going to do what he needs to do. But how do we actually strengthen it to the point where when we pray, we actually have like an expectation of my God might show up right now. Yeah. Let me back up one step and just.
00:04:55
Speaker
kind of give this kind of a warning indicator. You can know that you are not praying in full faith if you pray a prayer that leaves God and an escape calls. You know, those prayers will go, God, if it's your will, will you do this?
00:05:12
Speaker
which kind of says, I'm leaving you other options because I don't want to be embarrassed if what I pray doesn't become the reality. I think what Christ taught us to pray was to pray with full confidence that this is what I want to see happen and then not be afraid that it might not, but don't feel like we have to leave God and escape clause because God doesn't stop being God just because we didn't have the right answer. So to your point,
00:05:40
Speaker
I think the best way to exercise that muscle, number one, really, it's funny how many times it comes back to this, but reading the Bible, really reading the Bible and understanding God's heart for people.
Practicing Faith Through Prayer and Witnessing
00:05:54
Speaker
You see miracles occur and you understand why they occurred and what God was accomplishing in those miracles. And you are also reminded that many times prayers of people in the Bible weren't answered the way they prayed the prayer. It was answered always according to the way God wanted it to happen.
00:06:09
Speaker
And then the other thing that you can do is, again, I don't recommend going hanging out at emergency rooms, but make it a more regular practice to find people in your church to pray with so that you can more frequently see how God's hand moves and what he's up to. I guess it's kind of like, I hate to put it this way, but it's kind of like playing the percentages, you know? If I pray two prayers,
00:06:39
Speaker
And God doesn't answer my prayers and I'm going, okay, well, you know, for some reason God's not answered my prayers. But if I prayed 10 prayers and God answers two or three of those prayers and suddenly I'm going, okay, now I'm beginning to see that He answered all of my prayers. They just weren't always the way I wanted them to. So I think the more you practice the prayer of faith, the more the prayer of faith becomes more natural for you.
00:07:02
Speaker
One thing I've done, and this is a practice, again, from that other ministry where young people are going to the emergency room, they do this, and I was like, huh. But it's challenged me in a way, and we definitely don't do this in Baptist circles, but on the more charismatic side, this is a more common practice. But I find that it is really helpful for pushing that faith envelope, and I've done it regularly now, and I've found that it actually changes things.
00:07:30
Speaker
But when I pray for somebody to get healed, and you'll have to tell me if this is ridiculous, but I actually ask him, how do you feel right now?
00:07:37
Speaker
expecting that something could have happened in that exact moment. Oftentimes, I find that nothing's happened after the first time, but something happens when I'm like, well, let me pray for you again. All of a sudden, the mindset, before it was almost like a courtesy, like a, I hope you get better. But when I'm asking them, how are you feeling, and I'm grabbing them by the shoulder, looking into their eyes, and they're telling me, it still hurts, still got that migraine, or whatever the heck the problem is,
00:08:03
Speaker
Right. And I'm like, well, then let's pray again. All of a sudden their mind's like, oh my gosh. Like something shifts like, oh, oh, you, you expect that to actually happen. Right. And when I start praying again, I don't know. I've just, I've just seen it more. And I don't know if that's like a psychological trick or if maybe just faith would got kicked up in that moment, but sometimes after praying three or four times. I have never heard of that before. I have never heard that before. I could see where it would help. I mean,
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, let's give credit where credit's due. Sometimes changing the mindset of a person helps because you and I both know that there have been times we've asked somebody to pray for us and they've prayed a prayer and you walk away going, well, that was sweet, but I don't expect anything to happen, you know? But if you stopped me and say, wait a minute, let's pray again. Suddenly I'm realizing, wait a minute, he really thinks something's about to happen. And I think that's many times
00:09:01
Speaker
it kind of breaks down the block between our faith and what's fixing to become a reality for us. I don't think that's crazy at all. And then for the person praying in the prayer, I think it demonstrates just a little bit more faith. I'm not going to be disappointed because the first prayer didn't work. I'm going to keep praying in faith, believing that God wants to do something in this situation and we're going to wait till we see what happens. I may have to try that one.
00:09:31
Speaker
It's, it's vulnerable because you're stepping out into a place that's, I don't know. It's, it's, it's just vulnerable because like, what if he doesn't show up and I'm out, I've done enough times now it's kind of like, Hey, he doesn't show up. He doesn't show up, but there's enough times where he has that something's happened. And I've gotten to a point too, where I've been in some prayer groups where people have prayed for me and I used to have like a neck injury from like wrestling.
00:09:52
Speaker
And they had done this multiple times. I'd been prayed for. It wasn't until I went to a specific, it was almost like a little house and they had a dedicated healing ministry where they just pray for people. And I went in there, a bunch of older believers, brothers and sisters. I went into a room and I told them what happened, much like I had done multiple times before. And they started praying for me in that moment.
00:10:17
Speaker
The classical like I felt heat throughout my neck like I had never felt before and it was gone I was like what the heck this actually happened and I'd been prayed for this multiple times by people pushing in faith and praying multiple times and doing all the stuff but sometimes there is I don't know some people might have you know, you call it an anointing or you know James 5 talks about the
00:10:37
Speaker
the prayers of a righteous man or have miraculous results, you know, and it could be a whole group of people.
God's Timing in Miracle Responses
00:10:44
Speaker
I don't know. We were actually having this conversation a little while ago in our staff meeting during our leadership time. We're reading through a book together and the author of the book made the statement, God quite often works in slow motion compared to our timing. That's not exactly the way he word it, but it was something like that. So we started having this conversation about,
00:11:04
Speaker
watching God's hand as he works all the way through the Bible, Old Testament through the New Testament, how there's this even balance between immediate healings, like the one we studied Sunday, where Peter says to the man, get up and walk, and he immediately takes off running, versus long-term processes for answers to prayers, where the slaves of Egypt prayed for 400 years before God ever delivered them.
00:11:29
Speaker
God's answer was still the same. It just took 400 years. Well, he's doing something in the meantime. He's working on somebody's character. Maybe he's waiting on the right timing for other world events to line up in big situations like that. There's all kinds of reasons why God chooses to work, as he puts it, in slow motion for us. But I don't think there's anything wrong with praying that prayer, believing, hey, he can work.
00:11:52
Speaker
immediately right now in this moment, um, most of what Jesus did was that way when he, when he spoke healing over somebody, they, they were healed. I used to do silly things when I was like, in my early twenties, I would pray over bugs that had died and had been dead for a while by the windows. So, you know, you know what I'm talking about. Like they'd been there for a while. Their guts probably are gone. And you're just like, Lord, if I had the faith of the mustard seed, you're putting your hand over it, you know,
00:12:21
Speaker
I've never raised a bug from the dead, but I don't know. I don't know if God like smiles or laughs at me when stuff like that happens. You're like, of course, when you're young and zealous. I hope you hold on to that faith. When the time comes, I'm ready to do something really cool. Yeah. It's one of those mysterious things. You know, we get into this conversation. I actually had somebody after one of the services Sunday talking to me about the fact that they are a cessationist.
00:12:49
Speaker
For those who don't know what that word means, it means that they believe that there are certain miracles that were only relevant for the time of the apostles as the early church was getting established and earning a reputation. Prophecy, healing, speaking in tongues were some of those gifts that were not continued after that time. And so he believes that, yes, we still pray prayers in faith, but there aren't people who are healers anymore that God does all the healing in response to our prayers.
00:13:20
Speaker
And he was kind of bringing that subject up with me. And I guess my feeling is, who cares if it's you who are doing the healing by the power of God or God doing the healing by the power of God. It's always God that does the healing, regardless of what the vessel is.
00:13:35
Speaker
I only found out recently where the doctrine of cessation came from, and it came from Protestants, because the Catholic Church challenged Luther and all the Lutherans and Protestants back then. It's like, well, if God's blessing your thing, then where are your miracles?
00:13:52
Speaker
And their response to that was the doctrine of cessation. It's like, well, maybe God doesn't do that stuff anymore. Now we've kind of swung back a little bit. You're like, okay, went too far. And it's interesting because they go back to that verse that Paul writes where he says, where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues, they will cease. And so their belief is that Paul was saying that once the New Testament comes to a close and the canon is formed, then all those things will come to an end.
00:14:16
Speaker
But if you go to the end of that verse, it says that what is seen in part will be seen in whole and become perfect. They will argue that the perfect is that the New Testament is finished and the Bible comes to a close. But I think the perfect has everything to do with seeing Jesus face to face. Yeah. It was a stretch to call that the Bible.
00:14:40
Speaker
That's a weak stance. I don't like to get bogged down in divisive conversations like this because I don't think there's really any point to them. I think the point is that God still heals today when God chooses to heal. But if he tried to pin me down on it, I don't think I would call myself a cessationist. I would just say that God works when he chooses to work, how he chooses to work. Well, it sounds like you're a continuationist. Yeah, I'll probably have to admit that I am.
00:15:09
Speaker
But again, I don't think that means that there's necessarily a bunch of people walking around speaking in tongues. I think there are people who do that. I just don't think it's as prevalent today as it was back then because there's not as much of a need for it.
00:15:25
Speaker
Sure. And hence when we go overseas and the missionaries experience it a lot more partly because I feel like the people they're talking to have a lot more faith because they already expect miracles, even if they're like demonic miracles over there. But a healing to them is just like, they're ready to believe in that stuff. So in the US, much less so. Right. I agree. And Lord knows
00:15:49
Speaker
The wealthier you become, and maybe this is what Jesus had in mind when he said, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven. The wealthier you become, the harder it is to have faith because you become more self-reliant. That doesn't mean you can't have faith, and it doesn't mean that being rich is some kind of curse. I mean, we've seen lots of good men like Truett, Kathy, and others who carry that wealth and handle it well.
00:16:15
Speaker
But I think Americans live in the most luxurious society in the history of the world. We have more wealth than ever accumulated. Even the people we consider poverty-stricken are more well-off than most of the world. So we don't lean into faith very much. We don't have a need for it because we have become so self-reliant.
00:16:35
Speaker
I'm going to turn the tables here pretty drastically the next phase of this conversation. I want to get into a question that I heard posed by an atheist. I don't even know if this is an active YouTube channel today, but there's a whole YouTube channel dedicated to this one question. Their aim is to discredit Christianity. I remember seeing it and being like, dang, this is really powerful.
00:17:01
Speaker
they're clearly not digging into it deep enough in order to actually find the answer. They're just using it as a means of attacking Christianity.
Why Doesn't God Heal Amputees?
00:17:07
Speaker
Right. But I want to cover it today because I'm like, if you ever come in contact with this and you are
00:17:13
Speaker
a new believer or a believer that just hasn't really dug deep into the faith to be able to understand a lot of the reasons behind it, then it can be a very disarming question. And that is, if God is all-powerful and wants to heal us, how come God never heals amputees? Wow.
00:17:34
Speaker
And his, his logic behind it is like, well, we hear about healings. We hear about God healing people with cold or cancer. And while those are verifiable things, there's nothing more verifiable than a limb growing back where there had not been a limb before. Right. Cause that's, that's a tough one. And I will say there's a lot of answers to this, but it's an interesting thing. I can't verify this and that this isn't even firsthand information, but I've heard stories of third world countries where miracles like that have occurred.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah. Even where dead people have come back to life. Yes. You know, so I don't know that we can say that it's not happening. It's probably just not happening in a place where we can video it and put it on YouTube. Well, like let's imagine that it had actually been videoed. Like what if it happened this weekend at Grove Hill? There was a limb, it was gone and it came back and five people's iPhones caught it. Yeah.
00:18:29
Speaker
How do we, how do we think that would go down? Do you think that would turn the world around because everybody would be like, Oh my gosh, proof. No, it might become, it might become convincing for some, but no, I mean, you go again, Jesus's words to the, to the leaders, religious leaders of that day is you don't need to see any more miracles. You've seen enough miracles and you still don't believe it. That's it. You know, miracles, miracles are never about,
00:18:56
Speaker
trying to prove God exists. They're just about bringing glory to the God who we know exists. So I just, that's a great question. You know, why? I mean, there's a snarky side of me that might say, well, maybe he's the one that wanted them amputated in the first place because he wanted to use that as a trying moment in that person's life.
00:19:21
Speaker
those things happen. Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh, and God put it there for God's own glory. Let me go a long way in answering this question, because you've always heard the statement, if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain, so why don't we ever see mountains being moved? Well, the obvious answer to that is, to what point?
00:19:43
Speaker
guy will gladly move a mountain if there's a point to it, but he's not just going to start throwing mountains into the seas because he can prove that point to us. There's no purpose to it. So when you get to the question of why doesn't God grow back an amputee's arm, I think part of the answer has to be, okay, is there a point to this? Does this do something or accomplish something for the kingdom of God? If we're just doing it and say, hey, we saw a miracle, then
00:20:09
Speaker
Maybe the gods go and want, that's not a miracle I need to perform because it's not going to end up doing anything for the kingdom.
00:20:17
Speaker
I don't know if that made sense, but. Yeah. It's like, it's one of those hard questions that if posed by the right person and kind of boxed in by someone who's an atheist and is coming at it, it really, if you're put on the spot, it's hard for a believer to answer partly because you can't go back and do your research. But if you do your research, you'll find that one, it has happened. It's happened recently and it's happened throughout history. If you go back, there's like the Catholics are actually really good at documenting miracles because they like
00:20:44
Speaker
They just do they just don't think that yeah, but it's happened throughout history like limbs growing back. That's why it's a big deal because it Miracles like these are pretty rare, but they have happened
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, but a couple of these street musicians that think they're healers or they're growing like legs a little bit longer. I've seen those tricks before. Don't buy into that mess. I can get your miracles well, you know? Yeah, I've seen all those videos too. I was really into that for a period too. A lot of those are coming out of that one ministry I mentioned previously, actually. Yeah, I bet. That's that one. Okay.
00:21:22
Speaker
So if you ever come into contact with that, I think the thing that gave me peace is that God's bigger and more mysterious than we could ever know. And oftentimes,
00:21:34
Speaker
Things have happened if we just take a minute to look into them. Atheists are really good at throwing curve balls, but Christians have been thinking hard about all the most difficult questions in the world for way longer than most atheists have. And if I don't know the answer, I just have to go to someone who's an expert in that field or go and find it. Cause someone's come up with a really good answer for why this or why that, including why doesn't God heal amputees? Which he does. He does. He does. And I, you know,
00:22:03
Speaker
I think probably you dig hard enough, you'll find incredible stories around the world literally where you see there absolutely is no other answer, but that God intervened on behalf of somebody. He changed and reversed the natural laws of science in order to see something happen to bring him glory. I think it happens more frequently than we acknowledge.
00:22:24
Speaker
There's a few other things too that are like, well, what if this, what if that? What if there are aliens? What if, what if there is a gay gene in our genetics?
Worship and Discipleship in Response to God's Actions
00:22:32
Speaker
You know, these are questions that have been posed. Like, does that disprove the Bible? And you're always like, no.
00:22:38
Speaker
Not at all. Not at all. That'd be a grab bag of podcast questions for another time because that might be fun. I think it's a great example to go to chase down those questions. For instance, I'm one of those that goes, you know what? I don't personally believe in aliens, but if one showed up tomorrow, it would not shake my faith in God because God could put life on any planet he wants to.
00:23:00
Speaker
So those are not, to me, they're not hills to die on. There's much more important things that really you have to ground your faith in. And I do think more and more we need to emphasize to Christians, it's okay to say, I don't know, and it doesn't have to shake your faith. We're not expected to know everything.
00:23:22
Speaker
I think even a better question is more of a statement. It's like, I don't know yet. I don't know yet. Let's go find out together. That's what I tell my kids all the time because they'll come up with really good ones every once in a while. Kids are good at that. Yeah, I was working on this point for a sermon that's coming up, I think probably first of June yesterday.
00:23:42
Speaker
The idea of worship that we have as Christians or that we should have as Christians is that worship is our response to what God has already done for us, okay? And so when we come to church on Sunday morning, worship is really a response to what he's done Monday through Saturday in our lives, where we have seen him working, evidence we've seen that he loves us, even reminders from friends about how much we are loved by God, those kinds of things. That's what we come together to worship.
00:24:13
Speaker
discipleship is us desiring to know better the God we worshiped on Sunday. And so when we dig into those things and we get more comfortable with those ideas and see how God's character works in certain ways, then we're okay going. I don't know exactly everything you do, God, but everything about you that I do know proves you love me and I can trust you for the unknown.
00:24:35
Speaker
I love the way a pretty popular speaker put what a disciple was. He went back to Israel and had a profound revelation of like, man, we actually don't understand a lot of context in the seminary because we're so far removed from the culture that Jesus came up in. His name is Ray VanderLahn. He's fantastic teachings. If you ever just look him up on YouTube, you'll find some teachings from him. He's great. Absolutely.
00:24:58
Speaker
One of the things he talked about was like, when you're a disciple, like when a rabbi comes and asks you to follow him, it's almost like, like a famous coach asking you to come and play for them in the NFL. It's because it's pretty rare. It's pretty hard. But if they're asking you that, and Jesus asking us to all to follow him, but he's like, and to be considered a follower of the rabbis, you'd follow them around so close that the dust of their sandals would be all over you. Yep.
00:25:24
Speaker
that's what it means to be a disciple. But you're following so close behind them trying to mimic their every move and the way they say things and the how they study and how they pray. Like you're trying to do everything, which is why the disciples might ask like, what, how do you pray? That's a very disciple question to ask because they're trying to be like their rabbi. Right. That's good. That's really good. You know, I think a proper perspective on
00:25:48
Speaker
Worship, discipleship, service makes us better followers of Jesus Christ, and that's something we need to continue to refine and understand because for us, and this is true even at Grove Hill Church where we try to do our very best, but for us to change our mindset on what worship, discipleship, and service look like as followers of Jesus Christ would be a 180 degree shift from where most of us are in our thinking.
00:26:12
Speaker
And discipleship is one of those areas that we all need to grow in to understand what Christ has called us to do in following him. So the last question I want to dig into, you hit on in the sermon, but I want to go through it again, because I feel like it's one of those most important pieces, is what to do when a miracle doesn't take place.
Handling Unmet Miracle Expectations
00:26:31
Speaker
But you were really hoping it would. I think you start by praising God. You just praise God and say thank you for your answer.
00:26:41
Speaker
although it may not have looked like I wanted. I think the proper response is always going to start with humility, being reminded that you're not the controller of the universe. You're not the sustainer of the universe. Therefore, your answer, as good as it may appear to you, may not be the best answer until you come to God and you thank him in advance for what he is going to do in response to your prayer. And then you just put complete trust in him, what he did.
00:27:11
Speaker
You know, it's best. It's best for you. It's best for the person you are praying for, whatever the situation may be. There's especially touchy subjects that cause everybody to
00:27:25
Speaker
maybe not doubt, but really question the goodness of God. Things like when you lose a child, have a miscarriage, have a friend who, you know, she was engaged to get married in two weeks before the wedding, he left. You know, things like that, that really caused you to wonder what the heck happened. Even if nothing of it, nothing you did is just what happened. And you prayed that it wouldn't, but it still happened.
00:27:55
Speaker
I had the opportunity actually just yesterday to have a conversation with my daughter. We were talking a little bit about this as she continues as a young adult to build on the foundation of faith that she was given, answering this question about God's will and how God's will is carried out and how sometimes God's will just doesn't make sense to us. And of course, because of our shared experience, she and I went back to the death of her mother and her little brother.
00:28:20
Speaker
Gosh, a question I have asked thousands of times. Why allow a baby to die who's innocent and really hasn't done anything wrong? Why would that be the right choice for a God who loves? And I think the first thing she and I had to acknowledge is that Josh, my son, her little brother, is in heaven where we want to be. So it's not a bad end to the story. It's actually a good end to the story for him.
00:28:48
Speaker
He got a head start on what we want to be a part of at some point. But we had to acknowledge that even in those horrible circumstances of the death of those two people that we love dearly, God has brought multitude examples of good out of those things. People who have accepted Christ, people who've heard the story of God's goodness, even the fact that she and I and our character have been developed even more because of those experiences.
00:29:16
Speaker
many, many, many reasons just to say, okay, God, I don't necessarily like that and I don't understand it completely, but I'm trusting you because I believe you will do good. It's a big, big thing when we want to know why something hard has happened or why a miracle didn't take place when it seemed like such a good thing and it would have given God so much glory, it becomes a hard thing to want to know why. But oftentimes we have to remember that it's bigger, bigger than us. It's hard to see all the moving pieces.
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's an important prayer too, at least from my experience, was that once I got past the initial hurt, even though I still didn't know the answers to the why, that one of the prayers I had to pray was, God, I believe you're going to bring something good out of it, so what's my role in this? You know, how do I make sure that the good you desire from this happens?
00:30:08
Speaker
Sometimes it means you just step aside and let him do what he needs to. Sometimes you're gonna be very actively involved in that plan like I have been over the last 20 years by sharing my son's story. There's lots of different ways that God could use you to fulfill the promise of Romans 8.28 that he can work together, the good for all those who love the Lord even in those horrible situations.
Death as Transition in Faith and Miracles
00:30:30
Speaker
So I think our perspective has to change
00:30:35
Speaker
One of the things I think that helps change our perspective too is that death is not the bad thing that we think it is for Christians. It's actually a good thing. Not that we should go out and seek it, not that we should rush it, but that when it comes, it's actually a sweet peace and relief from this life. That's a tough one. I don't know if I see it as a good thing because it's not, it wasn't what God intended. Right.
00:31:04
Speaker
But like, obviously, like where we're at after that is good. Yes. I'd call it death. Maybe it's a better way to say it's the doorway to something good. Yeah. The actual event, obviously it's a sad thing for all the people involved, obviously. But yeah. Well, this has been a good conversation about miracles. Yeah.
00:31:29
Speaker
It's good to not chase after and make an idol of miracles, but it's good to believe that they can come to expect them. But generally I found with an open hand, knowing that I don't put my stock in miracles. I put my faith in Jesus, not in the power of miracles that he can perform.
00:31:52
Speaker
Because ultimately, those miracles come sometimes and they give glory to God. And even when they don't come, they all become opportunities to glorify Him in other ways. Mm-hmm. It's good stuff. So thanks for listening to the Grove Hill podcast, The Scripture Unfiltered, where we try to impact the life of every person with the whole gospel by any means possible. And that includes this episode. So share it with somebody who might need to hear it today.