The miracle of life

Today’s Reading: John 10:37-38 (NIV)

[Jesus said,] 37 Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. 38 But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

Good morning!

Have you ever experienced a miracle? Webster’s dictionary defines miracle as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. The mere fact that I woke up today is a miracle. If you are breathing air right now, you too are experiencing God’s great miracle of new life!

I am alive today because of His divine intervention. The gift of life is extraordinary, especially when we think about all the close calls we’ve experienced along the way. I remember riding in the back seat of my family’s 1958 Chevrolet, as we traveled home from Mississippi, after visiting my grandparents one summer. Interstate 55 did not exist then. It was Highway 55, a narrow, two-lane roadway, surrounded by cotton fields and farms. If you were unfortunate enough to get behind a slow-moving pickup truck or farming implement, your trip home would take a whole lot longer. Our average journey lasted approximately fourteen hours from Mississippi to Missouri, and my father was longing to get home. He was tired of sitting behind the steering wheel and totally frustrated with the slow-moving traffic. Dad decided to play leap frog with seven vehicles crawling behind a large tractor, who had no place to pull off the road, allowing other cars to pass. My father always drove with a lead foot and it was no surprise when he pushed the “pedal to the metal” and began the hop, skip and jump around the long line of vehicles. We could see the large freight truck coming toward our vehicle, but my dad really believed he could beat it. Suddenly, we found ourselves playing chicken on the highway of life. I remember watching my short-lived life float across my mind’s eye like a slow-motion film. My mother was screaming in the front seat; my sister and I grabbed hands and prayed. We needed a major intervention right then and there. Daddy laid on the car horn and tried to weave his way back into the right lane, but there was seemingly no place to go. Somehow, God opened a small space in the line of traffic and he managed to avoid what would have been a fatal head-on collision within seconds. We were so close that the freight truck took the ditch and ended up in the cotton field.

When we choose to live our lives in the fast lane, always in such a rush to get to our next destination, we may miss the miracles happening right in front of us. The people didn’t really know what to make of this teacher from Nazareth. Jesus knew they might not believe in Him, but if they could just believe in the miracles, they might begin to know and understand His Father and the love He has for us all.

We experience amazing miracles every day. Take time to count yours. Can you see just how much your Heavenly Father loves you?

Grace and peace,

Deb Spaulding

Faith UMC - St. Charles, MO

www.songofdeborah.com

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© Copyright 2008, Deb Spaulding

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