Living in the Miraculous

As Christians, we serve a miracle-working Savior. I've always believed miracles ought to be common occurrences for us, but are they?

I have a notation in the margin of 1 Kings 18 that quoted Bill Hardin (transition pastor at Calvary a while back). "Elijah lived in the miraculous." I'd like to live there, too. Wouldn't you?

What does "living in the miraculous" look like? The first time he's mentioned, Elijah was going about his usual life when he apparently got a word from God. Scripture doesn't relate this conversation but it might have gone like this:

"Go see the king of Israel and tell him I'm shutting off the water. No more rain until you say so." 

"Are you kidding, God? He's the KING. How am I supposed to get in to see him?"

"You let Me worry about getting in to him. Your job is to say what I told you to say. Now get going."

We don't know if he argued with God about it or not, but Elijah went and, somehow, he managed to get in to see the king. He said exactly what God told him to say, then turned and walked out of the king's chambers. 

God sent Elijah to a nature retreat by the brook Cherith. He sent ravens with food and meat, so the prophet was pretty well set there. For a while.

Ahab probably thought Elijah was a crackpot at first, but he soon found out different. No rain for a week, then two. Pretty soon, he and Jezebel had an APB (all points bulletin) out for Elijah. 

We don't know what Elijah did by the brook, but I think he took hikes, gathered sticks to build a fire at night. Usual camping activities. 

Meanwhile, a frantic search for the man who stopped the rain spread all over Israel.

After the brook dried up, God did something really tricky. He sent Elijah on a seaside retreat to Sidon, a costal town on the Mediterranean Sea. If I'd been Elijah, I'd have been afraid to go along with it, because Sidon was Jezebel's home town. God thumbed his nose at the evil queen. He hid Elijah in plain sight, and not a soul contacted Jezebel to tell her where he was.

We could go on and on. One miracle after another happened after every step of obedience. 

Those five words give us the key to living in the miraculous: After every step of obedience.

God gave Elijah seemingly outrageous instructions. Go see the king. Move to Jezebel's hometown. Elijah did exactly what God said. Every time, God honored his obedience with a series of miracles.

If that's the key, maybe that's why we don't live in the miraculous all the time. In general, as disciples, our instructions are very clear. Love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor in the same way we love ourselves. If we're not actively trying to accomplish the Greatest-Commandments set of directions, God's not likely to trust us with a more specific set of instructions. 

If we don't obey, we aren't likely to live in the miraculous. 

Do we want all God has for us? Obey. It's that simple. 

What about us? Does God still do miracles in our time? Yes. He does. He still does miracles of nature. Miracles of healing. Miracles of grace. 

If we want to see God at work, let's ask Him to open our ears to hear His voice, open our hearts to obey, and our eyes to see His mighty acts.

Elijah lived in the miraculous, and we can, too, IF we're willing to obey.

"Now it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, 'God, show yourself to Ahab...So Elijah went..." 1 Kings 18:1-2

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Praying Elijah-like Prayer

I've had the subject of prayer on my mind recently, so I started rereading Andrew Murray's classic, With Christ in the School of Prayer. If you've never read it, it's worth the time. I'm doing one chapter a day for thirty days, and it's already made me more intentional about my position when I'm praying, as well as the fervency of my prayers. 

To my surprise, the subject of prayer has come up repeatedly since I started on Murray's book. Sunday, we received a prayer card tucked inside the bulletin. I didn't even notice it until the pastor called attention to it. "What's the one thing you've been praying for that you would like to have a 100% guarantee that God would answer? The one thing you're most concerned about. Write that down on the prayer card and stick it in your Bible." 

Like most people, I have things that concern me deeply. I wrote my top concern on the card.

Our pastor went on to preach about Elijah's prayer. His sermon was so meaningful to me, that I'm sharing my notes.

He reminded us that Elijah was just a common, average man who prayed a huge prayer and it didn't rain for three and a half years. As James tells us, the "effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." (James 5:16) 

Elijah, he said, had a place to pray, (on the mountain) and a posture for prayer. He bowed down with his head between his knees. Elijah assumed a position of humility before God. I don't always prayed on my knees, but that's been my posture more often lately. Urgent prayer needs an urgently humble position.

Elijah also persevered in prayer. He sent his servant to look for a cloud seven times before he saw it. When there was no cloud, Elijah kept praying until there was one.

He had a plan of prayer. He had a specific prayer need (rain) and he didn't stop his prayers until the rain came. Finally, Elijah had a presupposition in prayer. He already knew what God intended to do. He kept praying until God did it.

The pastor invited us to come to the altar with our prayer needs, get on our knees and pray, then leave the cards there. The church staff would meet together to pray over the cards the next day. Nearly everyone in the worship center came forward. It was one of the sweetest moments in church I've ever experienced.

On my knees in the midst of hundreds of other people on their knees, I approached God with my need and left it with Him, along with my card. When I walked back to my seat, I wiped away tears with a firm certainty that God had heard my prayer and would deal with my need.

I've thought about that a lot since Sunday. The response made one thing clear. We all have an area of concern in desperate need of God's divine intervention. 

Why, then, do we not have answered prayer in proportion to our perceived need? Why, then, do we not see Elijah-style answered prayer?

One reason for unanswered prayer might be that we worship the not-so-great me instead of the Great I AM.

In this country, we depend (at least in part) upon ourselves and our ability to meet our own needs. It's when we recognize that we are powerless to meet our need, and that only God is big enough to do it, that we become desperate enough for Elijah-like prayer. 

This is not the case in some places in the world, where believers have neither the luxury nor the safety we have. They are much more desperate, pray with more determined fervor, and see many more dramatic answers to prayer.

Today, let's do what my pastor suggested. Think of that one need that transcends all others. The need of desperation. Write it down, date it, and get in your position of desperate humility and take it to the Lord. Stop trying to solve it yourself. Leave your need with the Lord and do the least American thing possible. 

Wait. Simply wait for God to move. 

Don't try to figure it out. Don't try to solve your problem. Don't doubt that God can handle it. Don't doubt that He will. Just wait.

I've prayed many prayers of desperation over the years. God's answered all of them. It hasn't always been the way I expected or the way I wanted, but they've all been answered in His way with what was best.

Are you burdened? Are you loaded down with worry and concern? Today, take those concerns and needs to the Lord in prayer and leave them with Him. He's big enough to handle all your troubles, and mine, and do what needs to be done.

"The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit." James 5:16-18 nasb

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Fire from Heaven

But they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem. When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:53-54 NASB)

As we have seen over the last few days, Jesus was heading to Jerusalem, where crucfixion, death, and resurrection awaited Him. Because of the distance, he planned to break up the walking journey by spending the night in one of the nearby villages. He sent messengers to arrange for accommodations in the Samaritan village, but when they heard that He was heading toward Jerusalem, they refused Him because of their serious dispute with the Jews over the place of worship. 

James and John were not happy about the refusal of accommodations. (Of course, if there were no accommodations for Jesus, there were none for the disciples, either.) These two "Sons of Thunder" wanted to retaliate, and to strike "while the iron was hot". Their suggestion was that they command fire down from heaven to consume the village. When we look at this verse, our first thought is usually, "What?? What in the world are they thinking?" It appears that they were imagining themselves as the prophet Elijah, who commanded fire down from heaven and destroyed two groups of soldiers. 

Elijah replied to the captain of fifty, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty." Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. (2 Kings 1:10 NASB)

There was a difference in the two circumstances, although perhaps the two disciples felt that they were defending God's honor. In Elijah's case, King Ahab and his wife Jezebel, who tried to kill Elijah for years and who were both extremely wicked and had led the nation of Israel into idolatry, had died. Their son, Ahaziah, ascended to the throne. Scripture tells us that Ahaziah was worse that Ahab, Jezebel, and Jeroboam. In a way, he was triple-wickedness and was leading Israel into even more evil than his father. He had severe injuries when he fell through a lattice and wanted to know if he would survive. Although Elijah, well known as a prophet and man of God, was available for consultation, the king sent messengers to inquire of an idol. 

God sent Elijah to meet the messengers and tell them that the king would die. When they returned, he sent a captain with fifty soldiers to Elijah. Ahaziah was not planning to hold a religious pow wow with the prophet. There was killing on his mind. When the first band of soldiers arrived, intent on arresting Elijah, he called down fire from heaven and they were all consumed. A second group of soldiers was sent, and Elijah did the same thing again. Fire from heaven consumed them. When a third group came, the captain begged for mercy and promised to protect Elijah, who accompanied him to the king. 

Although his method was dramatic and drastic, Elijah had defended himself from an attack by a band of soldiers bent on his destruction. He had spent years in hiding when Ahab and Jezebel sought to assassinate him. All the murderous attacks were for no other reason than a dislike of the truth Elijah spoke. He had no illusions about the reason Ahaziah had sent soldiers for him. He knew it was another plot against his life. 

The Samaritans had rejected Jesus and inconvenienced Him, ultimately depriving themselves of their Messiah. They were not trying to assassinate Him. Why, then, did James and John want to call down fire on them? We will not know for certain this side of heaven, but it was an extreme response to a refusal of lodging. 

What is odd is that these two men had been with Jesus throughout His ministry. They had heard Him teaching about turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you. How could they reconcile their impetuous desire for retaliation and destruction with the truth Jesus had taught them? They could not, and they did not try. They, like many of us, spoke first and, if they thought at all, it was later. 

Perhaps you never do this, but sometimes I have a strong reaction to a perceived slight. I haven't asked to rain down fire on someone, but my first reaction has not always been loving and forgiving. What about you? 

If James and John had stopped to consider what rejecting Jesus meant for the Samaritan village, perhaps they would have wept with grief rather than boil with anger. When we look at circumstances, rejection, and slights from others with the perspective of Jesus, they tend to look quite different, don't they? Our response should be in line with His response, as well.  How did Jesus respond? Pray. Forgive. Love. 

I saw a needlework piece recently with these words:

"When others hate, oppose, ignore, 

Help me, dear Lord, to love them more. 

Those are good words for us when responding to the slights and rejections of others. Let's act like Jesus would act. Pray, forgive, love. No matter what.