You can read in the Old Testament how God performed mighty in-your-face miracles. Think: the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, the splitting of the Red Sea, consuming Elijah's offering while the Baal worshippers looked on, you get the idea. In the New Testament, you can still see God work mightily as Jesus healed and resurrected people, as well as when the early Church was performing great works of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Well, does God work miracles now? A lot of people would say that He does not. I mean, when is the last time you saw a mysterious hand literally appear and write a message on the wall (Daniel 5)? But here's what I think...
My God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If He performed miracles for all of the recorded history we have, what would make Him unable now? The answer is "nothing". He is God after all. My God is actively working things out for His glory. And He is constantly showing Himself to us. The catch is that we have to be attentive enough to see Him now.
I want to share with you how God has revealed Himself to me just today. It may not be a big deal to you, but man is it a big deal to me!
After over a year of monitoring, blood work, scans, and sonos, my endocrinologist (thyroid doctor) told me that he was set to retire. We had decided awhile back that my thyroid needed to be removed due to lots and lots of nodules, but I'm a procrastinator. So we ended up putting it off over and over for one reason or another until he announced his retirement. But he wanted to see me taken care of before he retired, so I now had a deadline.
Seems simple enough to just schedule it and do it. It's "just" a day surgery, so no biggie, right? Well, that's true. Except that everyone wants money for everything. So we now had a relatively short time to come up with a relatively large (for us, anyway) amount of money. I told everyone, "I'm excited to see how God will provide for this!" And that was the truth - no hint of sarcasm. I knew He would provide. I just didn't know how or when.
We talked, prayed, brainstormed, sold some items online, took some babysitting jobs, kept praying. And then God sent some wonderful people literally to our living room to say they wanted to contribute a large percentage of the cost of the surgery. In their words, God had blessed them and they wanted to bless others. My husband talks a lot (!). And I am pretty opinionated. So when we were both at a loss for words, it was a pretty incredible moment. We were watching God provide right before our eyes.
As the time for the surgery got closer, we still had a good bit of money to come up with. Up until the exact cutoff date for rescheduling the surgery, God continued to provide that money through multiple avenues. So last Thursday, I was able to have my thyroid completely removed.
God provided the money. That's a cool story. The end, right?
Nope.
I went to meet with my surgeon today as a routine follow-up. She said my incision was healing nicely, scheduled more blood tests later, etc. And then said this: The pathology report showed three spots of cancer on my thyroid. But it also showed my lymph nodes were clear, showing the cancer was contained in the thyroid only. (Praise God!!)
Here's what this means:
When I failed to respond quickly enough to the medical information showing this surgery was needed, not knowing there was cancer in my body, God prodded and nudged me through the impending retirement of my doctor. Then when I still would have postponed, He funded it. Then when I second-guessed my decision over a rough weekend filled with extremely low calcium and an emergency room trip, He confirmed it today. God protected me - and my family. He used the obedience of others to bless me. Yall just think about that... I can barely even wrap my mind around how incredible that is! Little ole me.
So here are two take-aways for you:
1) When you obey (or disobey), it NEVER affects only you. Your story is intertwined with hundreds of other stories, and God is using the obedient to accomplish His will. Why wouldn't we want to be a part of that?
2) He absolutely IS working in our days. It just may not look the same as it did three or four thousand years ago. And I'm ok with that.
I hope you'll take a minute or two to share with someone how God is working in your life. He deserves our praise!
