The Voyager: Encouragement for Life's Journey

Questions About Miracles

4/29/2020

In this article Pastor Shawna helps us wrestle with questions about why miracles do or don't happen and why some prayers seem to go unanswered.

“You are the God of miracles and wonders! You still demonstrate your awesome power.” (Psalm 77:14 TLB)

What is the miracle you need in your life? What are you asking God for? All of us have some area where we need God to intervene. Maybe you are facing an illness, overwhelming debt, or you are struggling with depression or in a tense relationship. Even people who wouldn’t consider themselves religious will often turn to prayer during hard times, hoping that maybe heaven is listening.

It is not unusual to wrestle with doubts and questions even while we are hoping that God will come through for us. Here are three questions we most often wrestle with as seek God for the miracles we need.

1. Can God?
Can God heal me? Can he deliver me? Can he provide for me? This is probably the easiest to answer. Of course God can. He is all powerful. God can in one moment take someone from death’s doorstep to perfect health. He can with one word erase the depression and anger we fight against every day. He has no limits to his provision and could easily provide for all our needs and even our wants without sacrificing anything. In fact, we are so convinced that God can that when God doesn’t some of us decide there must not be a God or maybe that God doesn’t love us and so that is why he doesn’t intervene. Surely if God exists and he loves us, he would intervene. This leads to the second question:

2. Does God want to?
Maybe you have settled the question as to whether God can but you wonder if he really wants us to be healed, delivered, and provided for. Any good Father would want his children to have the best possible life. We read the memes citing Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you… They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” If this is true, why do we still experience disasters? Of course we may not realize that the context of Jeremiah 29:11 is that the Israelites are going to spend 70 years in exile before they experience the promise of Jeremiah 29:11. God did want a good future for his people and he knew the way to get them there was to work on what was inside of them first before delivering them from the outside circumstances. This leads to the third question:

3. Will God?
Will God heal, deliver, and provide for us? If he can and he wants to then why wouldn’t he? As I ponder that question myself I can hear the Father ask me his own questions.

“Can you trust me?”
“Do you have faith?”
“Will you obey me?”

We all know God can do miracles for us. But I believe God wants us to participate with him in the miraculous. Maybe rather than begging God to act, we need to ask him to show us what he wants us to do in the waiting. Is there something he is teaching us? Is there something he wants to change in us? Are we simply needing to trust that whatever is happening he will use for our good?

God is still and always will be God. His nature is unchanging. If our circumstances cause us to question if he is good and loving then we know that there must be something inside us that needs to change. Our faith ultimately shouldn’t be in what God can do for us but in who he is. Romans 4 uses Abraham as an example of someone who despite what his circumstances looked like, he trusted God because of who God is. As we grapple with the questions of why miracles do or don’t happen and why some prayers seem to go unanswered we must not let go of our assurance in the goodness and love of God.

The next time you pray ask God to show you how you can participate in seeing a miracle done in your life!

Article by Pastor Shawna Carpenter, 4/29/20

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A Journey to Death and Life

4/13/2020

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In this article Glenda tells the story of how God used the tragedy of her husband's death to transform and comfort her.

"Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above. With Wisdom, Power, and Love. Our God is an awesome God." Song by Rich Mullins

A couple of years ago, I married a man who had been a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for over 60 years. He moved to Florida, where I lived, and we started our happy journey. We would read books and the Word of God together. We would sing the old gospel songs together. One night he woke me up praying in his heavenly language while weeping and laughing. This went on quite a while and then he turned over to me and continued. I laid in awe listening to this wonderful man commune with God. It seemed as if our dreams of living the last part of our lives would be a happy time in the Lord.

Within a couple of months he became sick. He spent a few nights in the hospital. Upon returning home, he said he wasn’t going to the doctor. He believed God would heal him. As time went by, he began to have serious issues so he decided to cooperate and do what needed to be done.

We had been married for over a year when he was diagnosed with cancer.
From that time forward, his body deteriorated and he had to go stay where
he could get the help that he needed. I didn’t understand any of this because
it wasn’t what we had planned. I kept asking God ‘why’ and He gave me
the Scripture “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your
own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5 NKJV). I settled in to caring for my husband to the best of my ability.

As time went on, many changes happened and I experienced a journey that was straight from the throne room of God. As my husband laid in that bed he sang gospel songs, he laughed and cried, he took imaginary communion, he preached, he spoke in his heavenly language while looking straight at God. He gave me the most beautiful word from the Lord that I had ever heard. I felt like I was standing before God and He was talking directly to me.

As I sat by my husband, I would weep from the beauty that I saw surrounding Him from the heavens. He never complained nor asked for anything. It was a journey that changed my whole life. I felt like I had been ‘born again’ for the second time. I saw that when you start to transition to the spirit world, there is NO stopping or
coming back. It is then TOO late if you are not ready to go into eternity.

My heart became so conscious of the many souls that weren’t ready to meet God and I would weep uncontrollably. I realized that nothing in this world that we would do was more important than going out into our world and telling the good news of Jesus.

When my husband passed on to the next world, I could almost hear him shouting victory and I knew that he also was kneeling at his Saviors’ feet. Now I am very somber and anxious to do the work that my Father has for me to do. I want to hear His voice saying. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).

I have a question for you. Have you taken time out from your busy days and or schedule to reflect on what you are really supposed to be doing in your christian walk? It's not about pomp or circumstance, but it’s about going to the cross daily and laying yourself all out to our Lord.

I pray that God, our Father, will lead you down a path that will make Himself more real to you than ever before. May God bless you and keep you. May he cause His face to shine upon you and give you peace (Numbers 6:24).

Article by Glenda Blakkolb

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