Acts 3 - The Message and Today's New International Version
For 9 months, I watched a good friend fight cancer. A month ago, he lost the battle and passed away. Kevin was a worship leader, who moved to Colorado, to set up a ministry to other worship leaders and pastors. His life mission was to glorify God in how he lived and to lead others to a right understanding of their identity in Christ. As a modern day psalmist, he had a way of making everyone around him smile - the kind of person this world needs...really.
Now, I think I understand death and sickness. I realize that we live in a world that is not functioning the way the Creator intended it to function. Our bodies fail us, the creation reacts with volatility and disasters take lives and we have fellow humans who make horrible choices and lives are lost as a result. I am comfortable with knowing that when sin entered the world in Genesis 3, our world became messed up. I really think I am.
That said, when I read stories like Acts 3, I put my Bible down with a puzzled look on my face. You see, Jesus doing miracles and healing people was one thing, but then the Holy Spirit (the same one living in me) filled the disciples and they healed people, that feels totally different. Did those sick people have more faith than my friend? I don't think so. I'm just not sure I'm willing to accept the line any longer regarding the miraculous: "that happened then, but we now have the Scriptures to see God's power." I have too many friends that leave for other parts of this world where they see and experience things like this.
My resounding question right now is this: Is there something in our western culture that inoculates us to the miraculous? Have we "reasoned" out the possibility of the impossible? Are we missing something because we are "civilized"? Anyone have thoughts or experiences to share?
I often wonder if maybe I didn't pray hard enough or often enough. Did not enough people pray? Did those praying not have enough faith? Or maybe, just maybe, Gods plan is different from mine or different from the thing for which I am praying. But still. I had two coworkers lose parents recentlty - one to cancer and the other to heart disease. And I know in my heart that these are illnesses God can (and does cure), but I almost feel as though it is my fault. That I didn't trust enough, didn't pray hard enough. I don't know.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I wonder is are we so used to advanced medicine that we don't realize it for the miracle it is? That it, like everything else, is designed by God? Not too long ago, kids used to die, become disfigured, whatever from polio. But here in the US that doesn't really happen anymore because kids are vaccinated; because someone "found" a vaccine. But what I'm thinking is someone prayed for a cure and God provided one. And that IS a miracle. I think that we just aren't paying enough attention.
I am sure our current wealth has something to do with it, however for me it is characterized by the question: Is there any need for the miraculous?
ReplyDeleteWe spend our days arranging for our needs and most of our wants. We set goals and put programs in motion and never even ask Jesus if this is what He would have us do. If it seems 'good' to us, we do it. We live lives that are characterized by the term 'practical agnosticism'. By that I mean we live in such a manner that God is unnecessary to our daily lives because WE arrange for everything. In reality our lives are lived out as if He doesn't exist (practical agnositicism). The only time we bother with God is when we cannot handle it, when we are overwhelmed, when we are confronted by something beyond our control. We have substituted personal competency for a personal relationship with God.
Sure we recognize the need for forgiveness, for God's grace, but we can handle the rest of it. We spend our days trying to arrange for a life, but fail to see that what we arrange for is temporary. Jesus is LIFE. Life flows to us through our relationship with Jesus. We cannot arrange for it. Healing and restoration come from Him. Hence Peter was able to say "I can't give you money (I don't have any) but I can give you life/healing/restoration, because I have LIFE from Jesus.
So for me, this passage is very personally confrontational. It all comes down to this: how is my relationship with God? I cannot give others what I don't have.
I definitely can see over-planning and science as contributing factors to our inability to see or experience miracles. Pete, I really am chewing on the term "practical agnosticism" because that is loaded - saying we believe, but living our life as if we don't. Wow. That's partly what strikes me from chapter two. These early followers didn't seem to have the option of practical agnosticism. I wonder how my life would be different if I really didn't see it as an option for me either.
ReplyDeletei'm getting way off topic, but can i just say i don't know? i have typed like 18 things into this little box and then deleted each one. at the end of it all what i came down to was this:
ReplyDeletepractical agnostic = sinner
because the only way i can see a true believer and follower of Christ whose life is built on that foundation being practically agnostic is when we choose to sin. but i don't think that arranging or planning life (with a lower case l i f e) based on the knowldege that we have LIFE (capital L I F E) through Christ is living as if we don't believe.
Boy, do I have thoughts and questions on this topic of healing and prayer. As a person who, by the age of 27, had lost all but one grandparent, a sister, and my mother, I've certainly had my moments where I just doubted that I had any power when I prayed for someone to be healed. I remember a moment on the playground in 3rd grade when my grandfather, who was my only father figure at the time, was dying and I confronted my friends and told them that they just weren't praying hard enough for my Pappy. I remember wanting to blame someone for this loss I was about to face. That's the first time I remember ever really questioning. As an adult, I bargained with God as my mother went into heart surgery asking him that if she was going to die, just let her go during the surgery, and when she came out, I took it as a sign that she'd be fine. And I screamed at him at the top of my lungs when my sister called to say she'd taken a turn for the worse and I needed to come say my good-byes. But, I also saw the gift that the extra time was as I got to spend time with her, watch her with her sister one last time, and see revealed just how intensely sick she was and how merciful God was to take her home. I look back on it now as answer to a prayer I didn't pray. God knew me so well, that he knew I would question the surgery and wish I'd been by her side if she'd died in an operating room.
ReplyDeleteI guess this is where my trusting the "coin flip" moment came from. I know that I can talk to God and let him know my concerns, fears, desires, etc. but at this point in my life, I have released the final outcome to him. It's freeing and frightening at the same time. I want to feel that I can say, "God, I want this person to be safe, I want this person to be healed..." and just know that it will be. Is it a lack of faith on my part that I don't just know it? Is it wrong that I feel that my order is in, but the decision is ultimately God's?
I see soldiers' faces on tv nearly everyday and wonder why they died and my brother didn't. I prayed for him every time he crossed my mind. Did that man's family not pray? Did they not believe? I know God didn't strike him down, but when my brother goes back, what guaranty do I have that I'll "pray enough" this time?
I've always wondered about the "healing" ministries of certain evangelists where they have huge gatherings for the purpose of healing miracles. Not necessarily doubting that people are actually healed (although I know there are scam jobs within that circle) but why those people that are supposedly, "specially gifted" (like Peter was that day)don't stay at the hospital. Don't take that as criticism of these people because that's not the point - the point is, I don't think miracles can be bottled up and earned with enough prayer or enough faith. It REQUIRES faith, but in my limited understanding, it is not about quantity, its about recognition of the source for healing / miracles... and from there its all about grace.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we get to spill our thoughts about all this without having to be necessarily right about everything - thats what i like about this blog thing.
Ashley, my heart goes out to you. How do we reconcile that God seems to answer some prayers for a person to be healed and not others? When you're in the middle of it, you can't. It just hurts.
ReplyDeleteEven though the apostles had amazing spiritual power, they still suffered physically and many of them died young. Ultimately, the payoff for following Jesus has to be bigger than escaping suffering or grief, as it was for the apostles.
But when someone I love is suffering or in harm's way, I'm still praying with everything I've got...