"When was the last time you have done anything preposterous?"
Those words echoed through my head as I sat listening to the same message for the third time. Again, the same thing struck me in the same way it had before. I was finally actually realizing that I was stuck... and it was by choice. I was choosing not to follow God because it was more comfortable to stay put and not move than it would be to follow God with everything that I was. So why is this important?
God has given us two filters: our spirit and our mind. Both provide a binary way of processing information. Our mind determines if something is logical or not, while our spirit determines if something is God or not. For most people, they determine if something is logical before they bother to decide if it is from God. Unfortunately, this leaves an entire category of information from God out of the picture: the illogical.
To just about anyone, this makes sense. We are taught from an early age to use logic and reasoning to get through life. Then, at some point, we learn to hear God's voice. It is only natural for us to filter things first by it logic and then to decide if it's God or not. The problem is, is that doesn't allow any room for a miracle. The blind man from birth, for example; there is a lot going on here, but let's just imagine the conversation between Jesus and the Holy Spirit in this for a moment.
H.S. "See that blind guy?"
J. "Yeah."
H.S. "Lets heal him."
J. "Ok, How?"
H.S. "How about you put mud on his eyes this time. Just spit in the dirt, Mix it up and slap it on his eyes."
Now, how much of this is logical? To me, not much. The crazy thing is that it worked! The best thing is that it didn't just impact this man, but the whole village as well. Everyone in the town new that he had been blind from birth. There is nothing about the miracle that can be attributed to any individual effort that orchestrated the healing of this man; that would be the logical assumption. The miraculous conclusion is that God healed him supernaturally. The icing on the cake for this miracle is that Jesus, once again, blew up the religious belief of the day.
This pattern is repeated not only in every miracle Jesus performed, but actually throughout all of Scripture.
If we take the approach on filtering information that we are born into, our chances of seeing a miracle are slim. But, if we take God's designed approach of filtering to see if it is God or not first, we then have the choice to follow that path, regardless of how logical it may be. God's goal is to have our heart, not our minds. Faith is not a function of the mind. In fact I believe faith is blocked by our mind.
Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
I began to write this almost a year ago. Since then I have been in many situations where I have seen the miraculous at work. The biggest thing that I have learned is that the most important piece that I missed here is love. Every interaction with every person must take place with the foundational priority of love. As I began to walk out the miraculous, I began to further figure out the "formula" of how healing works. Fundamentally I was trying to figure out how I could perform a miracle. What I finally realized is that its not about me. It is completely and totally God acting in love toward a person in a way that it can penetrate their heart. Sometimes radical healing is not what will be understood by someone as love!
Who am I to attempt to create a formula to try to reach someones heart? Why do I not search first the one who knows the heart (Proverbs 21:2) then do what he says to impact an individual? Why would I rather create my own way of reaching someone, than to lay down my pride and enter a moment that only God can take credit for?
