05/24/2024
What do we do when the impossible prayer is answered? How do we react when we pray for a miracle and we actually get it? This is the subject of our devotional this morning, and my example has to do with the coming Christ... The promised Messiah. Jesus Christ was promised, but before he could arrive another would have to be born and prepare the world for his coming... That forerunner would be John the Baptist, and his birth would be miraculous, but even after his parents had prayed continuously for a child, and when faced with this miracle, his father doubted the coming miracle because the answer was outside the natural norm.
“In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest of Abijah’s division named Zechariah. His wife was from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. But they had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive, and both of them were well along in years. An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. “How can I know this?” Zechariah asked the angel. “For I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.””
Luke 1:5, 7, 11, 13, 18 CSB
Zacharias and Elisabeth were barren and aged. They had been praying for a child their entire married life. Now, in their latter years they continued to pray, but they believed that a child at their age was impossible; and yet they continued to pray. Maybe it was out of habit or perhaps because Zacharias was a priest and that's what priests do. Whatever the reason, they had no confidence in their prayer for a child. Then one day when Zacharias was serving in the temple, Gabriel, an Angel of the Lord, appeared and told him that his prayer had been heard and that he was to have a son. Even in the face of an archangel Zacharias doubted God's word. How could this be possible? How can he know that this miracle will actually happen? Remember his words?
“And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”
Luke 1:18 KJV
So He was struck dumb, but the miracle would come anyway and a child would be born to them. After all of the years of prayer, Zechariah, at the time of fulfillment, had doubted. Do we do that as well? Does our faith waver at the very moment of miracles? Do we think that something must be naturally possible before it can occur? Do we think that miracles have to be something we can explain? Well, that is what the world believes, but it shouldn’t be what we believe.
I have prayed for a dying relative before and like Zacharias I prayed out of obligation... I knew in my heart he was dying. I wasn't faced with a miraculous healing, but was that the result of my lack of faith? What would have been my reaction if an angel had appeared and said "go down to the Harpeth River and wash your face for the next seven days... on the seventh day your loved one will be healed and granted 20 more years?" Would I have questioned God? Would I have gone to the river? Would my preconceived view of the outcome, even though I prayed otherwise, represent the same doubt that Zacharias had?
Our prayers should be offered with the full expectation of God's answer. He may grant them, or if they don’t conform to His will He may not, but we must expect action on His part as His will is done, and when a miracle occurs the proper response is to drop to our knees and thank Him from the bottom of our hearts, the depths of our souls. Even as Christians, many of us have grown to expect that what appears to be impossible must truly be impossible, even for God... This belief couldn't be further from the truth.
Miracles happen every day, throat cancer is healed, heart issues disappear, premature babies who weigh less than 2 pounds survive, tumors vanish, and the dead or dying somehow recover. Medically impossible occurrences happen every day across the United States and around the world. Let's not meet them with doubt.
When I was a teenager I was swimming in a lake in Virginia. I became tired and couldn't make it back to shore... I was sinking into the dark when suddenly I was surrounded by light, and filled with an incredible peace and joy. I was told to stand up and I did... I had been far from shore, but now I was only a few feet from the bank and my head was above water. It was a miracle and the incredible feeling of that moment is what I am certain I will feel again in the presence of the Lord. Miracles happen. Sometimes we pray for them, and sometimes God simply has a plan that supersedes nature without a word from us. I experienced that and Zacharias experienced that. The difference was that God didn't give me the opportunity to doubt Him; He took matters immediately into His own hands.
God keeps the faith and answers prayer. Sometimes the answers are exactly what we want, and at other times they are what we needed them to be. Many times they are natural and routine, but on occasion they are wonderfully inexplicable, and miraculous. God does just the right thing at just the right time. It is up to us to trust in His goodness and never doubt Him as He moves in our lives and prayers.
So today as we pray let's expect His answer, and praise him for the miraculous as well as the routine. Our God deserves our trust because His Word never fails, and he deserves our thanksgiving in His goodness. When faced with a miracle do we continue to look for a natural explanation? Do we pray for a miracle and then doubt it when it comes? Are we just giving lip service to our faith?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your many promises and especially for your promise that if we pray within your will, and in the name of Jesus, that you will answer our prayers. Thank you Lord for showing us that you are not bound by nature, and the natural laws you created. Thank you for returning life to the dead, health to the terminally ill, and for moving mountains when we need to see evidence of you to strengthen us in our faith. Help us in our unbelief that we will see you in the possible, and impossible. Help us to remove the shackles of the natural world from you and let us see your unbridled power and wisdom as you answer our prayers. Let the scales of worldly origin fall from our eyes, so that we can see you fully, and believe. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who was, and is, and is to come, Holy are you who transcends time and every natural law that you have set in motion to bring order to our world and lives. Teach us that it is you who makes food to be unclean, and then to be clean once again, it is your will that governs all things and makes everything that is impossible to be possible. We are not to judge and hold you accountable, but it is you who holds us to count. Your power and dominion over all things allows you to perform miracles that astound us Father, and we praise you when they come. We look to you in those miraculous times and fall to our knees to worship you. Praised be your Name Father, and holy is our time of prayer in which we reach out to you and ask, yes, even to ask those things that appear impossible to us. Sometimes we are simply hungry and ask for a piece of bread, but when you bring manna in the morning it is not for us to ask how this is naturally possible… it is only for us to believe, and for our hunger to be satisfied by you.
Amen.
Rich Forbes