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The World is Full of Miracles

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Why Do We Overlook Them?

John the Baptist was put in prison by Herod for sharing the message of Jesus. John had spent his whole life declaring the message of the coming Messiah. As he was trapped there in prison, he may have been having second thoughts about this. Had he got this wrong? Was Jesus really the Messiah?

While he was in prison, John sent two of his disciples to Jesus to find out. When they went to Jesus, they found Him curing people who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirts. Also, he was giving sight to many who were blind. (Luke 7:21)

They asked Jesus, “Are You the one who’s coming, or should we look for someone else?” (Luke 7:20)

He answered them, “Go back, and tell John what you have seen and heard:

Blind people see again, lame people are walking, those with skin diseases are made clean, deaf people hear again, dead people are brought back to life, and poor people hear the Good News.” (Luke 7:18-23)

Jesus was telling these disciples and John the things they had been taught. These things had been predicted in Isaiah.  

Last week we looked at Isaiah telling us about the Messiah in chapter 9. Between chapter 9 and chapter 34, Isaiah is telling the people of the harsh judgement to come. That’s a lot of chapters about what the people can expect because of how they have been living.

In chapter 34, Isaiah switches it up.

He goes back to the message of hope for restoration.

He tells the people that God is coming. Deserts will become green. The Lord will display His glory. He is coming to strengthen those who have tired hands and encourage those who have weak knees. He will say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, and do not fear, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you.”

And when He comes, this is what it will look like:

“He will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will sing for joy! Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the wasteland. The parched ground will become a pool, and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land. Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish where desert jackals once lived.” (Isaiah 35:1-10)

These miracles that Isaiah predicted happened.

We’ve heard of these miracles that Jesus did. The Bible is full of examples of Jesus performing miracles.

Miracles just happened in the Bible though…right? Wrong.

The world around us is full of miracles. It’s nothing but miracles.

Miracles don’t have to be some miraculous healing (not that they can’t be). Doctors, nurses and medicine are miracles. Technology that allows us to communicate virtually with people around the world is a miracle. The fact that the sun comes up right on schedule every morning, as it has for thousands of years, is a miracle.

I think Albert Einstein summarized it will when he said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

The world is a miracle full of miracles. We just need to open our eyes and see them.

Don’t Go Through Life Angry at the World…There’s a Better Way

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Regardless of Your Situation, Being Angry Will Only Make It Worse

We all find ourselves in situations that make us mad. The question is what are you going to do about it?

Gary Christian took his first step straight into his own dark, cold, hellish hole on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007. 

That’s when law enforcement told his family that his daughter Channon’s body had been found.

Family and friends had been searching for her for two days,

What happened to Channon Christian and her boyfriend, was one of Knoxville’s most horrific crimes. The young couple was ambushed and carjacked on Jan. 6, 2007.

Both were beaten, tortured and raped.

The anguish never leaves Gary Christian’s voice when he remembers being told his daughter was murdered. 

“That was my baby,” he says.

After being told what had happened, he walked to the far edge of the police parking lot, away from anyone, and looked toward heaven. 

He screamed at God. Then he turned away from Him. 

“I told Him I am done with You. I don’t want You in my life. I don’t need You in my life, and I don’t trust You with anything.”

This was a dramatic turn, a first step into his hell on earth.

Saved at age 8, Christian had grown up in church. If the doors were open, he was there. He went on mission trips, played drums in a Christian band and witnessed for Christ. “I loved the Lord,” he says emphatically.

As a parent, every morning, he prayed. In every prayer, he asked God to watch over Channon and her older brother Chase.

Then God failed him.

“All I asked Him to do for my kids was to protect them. And He didn’t.”

That anger, mixed with deep hate and a desire for vengeance, was all he felt for years. He existed in a cold, dark abyss. Even in a crowd, he felt alone. 

“I couldn’t depend on nobody; I didn’t trust anybody,” he said. “Alone had a lot to do with everything.”

About a year after the initial trials, Christian found a way to keep Channon’s memory alive. He bought a motorcycle and started the Shepherds RC riding club.

The club hosts an annual Channon and Chris Memorial Ride to raise money for charity. 

The ride is one way the families remember their children while helping others.

Then, the Shepherds rode Christian back to a place he didn’t want to go. 

Some club members asked him to attend their church. Come to Easter service, they said. It was almost like a dare. He didn’t want to go. But he did, mostly just to shut them all up. 

“I never denied God. I just didn’t want to have anything to do with him,” he says.

He knew Easter service would be about the crucifixion. But the Rev. Jim Cummings first preached about Peter, the disciple who denied Jesus and whom Jesus restored. Then he talked about Christ on the cross.  

Two weeks after Easter, Christian was back at the church. “I got convinced to go again,” he says with a wry smile.

That Sunday was the day of the Shepherds’ club-only ride to remember Channon’s April 29 birthday. Before the ride, Christian and other Shepherds went to church.

The sermon was different than the Easter message. But Christian felt it was directed right at him. “I couldn’t shake what this guy said the first time, and he’s doing it again.” 

It’s about 24 miles up Pellissippi Parkway from the church to the cemetery. The whole ride that last April Sunday, Christian says, “the Lord was tearing me up.” 

When he got off his bike at Channon’s grave, “I was just so tired. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

“I went down on my knee, and I asked him, ‘Just like you did with Peter, restore me.’ And he did.”

When he got to his feet, he realized the Shepherds around him “were all Christians … Everybody in the club then, some longer than others, had been praying that one day I would find my way back.

“I hadn’t done that when I started the club. Never once did I ask a man about his faith. But all I knew that day, all the ones standing there with me were Christians.” 

He knows now how it happened. 

“When I turned my back on God, he never left me. He never stopped loving me. He never stopped protecting me. He never left my side. And I didn’t even know it.”

Amy McRary, Knox News

Restoration and healing aren’t always easy. For Gary this means revisiting and talking about death, loss and anger.

Anger causes a lot of unnecessary pain. To be healed from that pain we need to ask for help…both from God and others.

In Luke 13:10-17 Jesus healed a woman who had been suffering with a crippling spirit for eighteen years. She came to Jesus and he healed her.

Jesus can heal us too.

Sometimes the healing is different than what we’re looking for, but God knows better what we need. The key to this healing is to ask.

Don’t waste your life being angry.