"Do Miracles Still Happen?"

Do miracles still happen?

For me, that question just became deeply personal.

After preparing for the possibility of a heart transplant, I received news I never expected: I don't need one.

In this episode of Bible, Basically, I share what's happened in my own life while exploring what Scripture actually says about modern-day miracles, healing, prayer, medicine, and the difficult question we can't ignore: If God can heal, why doesn't He heal everyone?

This isn't about having enough faith to guarantee a miracle. It's about praying boldly, trusting God with the answer, and remembering that whether the answer is yes, no, or wait, He is still God.

Today, though, I get to say something I've been waiting a long time to say:

Thank You.

Figuring out faith, together.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 2:11

Well, hey everybody. Welcome back to Bible basically, where we are figuring out faiths together. You know, I was going to continue this series on kind of everyday biblical application. And I I mean I guess I kind of am, but I but I I I want to talk about something that is very personal to me because I think that it speaks volumes about what we're doing here. So I want to start today's episode a little differently. It's not going to be some clever opening or hypothetical question, and certainly not a story from someone else's life, just something to have it in mind. I've alluded on several occasions during these episodes that I have a fair share of health problems. And one of the things that I was told not too long ago was that I needed a heart transplant.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

And just this past week, I was told that I don't. Now let me say that again.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

I was told that I needed a heart transplant, and now I am being told I don't.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

And I gotta be honest, I'm still processing that.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Because when you've spent time thinking about something as enormous as that, you you just don't flip a switch when someone gives you the good news. I mean, I've I've had heart surgery before, so I knew a version of what it was going to entail. I imagine the surgery. Thought about the recovery. Obviously, I thought about what could go wrong, thought about my family, whether or not I was going to wake up.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

And even what life might look like afterwards. Other people prayed.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

And somewhere along the way, I had to come up, come to terms with the possibility that this might be my future.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

And then my doctor says it's not.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

So today, what I want to talk about, and you've already seen it in the title, but I want to talk about miracles.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

This is this is a divisive topic.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Do miracles still happen? Does God still intervene directly in our lives? Does he still heal? Can we actually pray for something impossible and expect that God might do it? And when something extraordinary happens, when a prognosis changes, when the thing you are preparing yourself for suddenly isn't happening anymore, what are we supposed to call that? Because look, I'll tell you what I want to call what happened to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

And that's a miracle. But I want to be careful with that word.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

I'm not sitting here with some scientific test that says God did this. It's not how it works. There's I'm sure plenty of medical explanations for this reverse in in in diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

But I mean, what else am I supposed to call it?

SPEAKER_02 6:59

There might have been a dozen things, treatments that I'm on, medications that I'm on that have helped a little bit or that are helping a little bit. But I don't think that pushes God out of the story. In fact, I don't believe that medicine and miracles have to be enemies. Sorry. I don't believe that if a doctor can explain what happened, God automatically gets excluded from it. But I also don't want to be so sophisticated, so skeptical, so afraid of sounding irrational that I'm unwilling to look at something so extraordinary in my life and say, God, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Do miracles still happen? And maybe even a harder question What do we do when they don't? Because if we're gonna talk about miracles, honestly, we have to talk about both.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

We use that word pretty casually, miracle.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

You know, you find a parking spot in the mall. Man, it's a miracle. I found a parking spot. Your flight leaves on time. That's a miracle. Kid cleans the room without being asked. I mean, as parents, we all know that is that is truly God's intervention.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

That wouldn't actually qualify. But biblically, miracles are something much bigger. Throughout scripture, we see moments when God acts in extraordinary ways that reveal his power, his authority, his compassion, and ultimately his identity. The Red Sea parts. Mana falls from heaven, the blind see, the lame walk, storms stop. Thousands are fed from almost nothing, the dead are raised, and ultimately Jesus himself rises from the grave. Christianity doesn't simply leave room for miracles, it's built around a miracle. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, we don't have Christianity. In fact, Paul says exactly that in 1 Corinthians 15, 14 through 20. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We're even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. Think about what he said. He doesn't say the resurrection is a nice inspirational story. He says everything hinges on that story. We talked about all of this in an earlier episode. What if it's true? If Jesus didn't rise, our faith collapses. So Christians should not be embarrassed by the supernatural.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

It's woven into everything that we believe. There's a moment in Luke where Jesus is talking about salvation, and the disciples ask him a question.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

In Luke 18, 26 and 27, those who heard it said, Then who can be saved? But he said, What is impossible with man is possible with God.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I love that verse.

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But we need to be careful with it because Jesus isn't giving us a blank check. He's not saying, whatever impossible thing you want, God is obligated to give you. No, it's not how it works. It's not Christianity. God's not a vending machine. Prayer isn't putting enough faith into the machine until the miracle drops out. But Jesus is reminding us of something incredibly important. He's reminding us that our limitations are not God's limitations. There are things that we cannot do or cannot control. There are outcomes we cannot manufacture. There are problems that we can't solve. God doesn't have those limitations. And that means Christians should be able to pray boldly. We should be able to ask God for things that seem impossible. Not demand.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Ask. There's a difference. When we talk about miracles, we can't avoid talking about healing.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Because healing was a huge part of Jesus' ministry. And one of my favorite examples is in Mark chapter 5. A woman has been suffering from bleeding for 12 years. She spent everything that she has trying to get better, and nothing worked. And then she hears about Jesus. Mark 5, 25 through 34. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well. And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned to the crowd and said, Who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him, You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, Who touched me? I love that little bit of, man, everybody's touching you, that that moment right there. The humanity of everything. Everybody's touching you. And he looked around to see who had done it, but the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. Twelve years she lived with that. Think about it. Twelve years of doctors and disappointment, hoping that the next treatment might work, and was still waking up with the same problem.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

And then she encountered Jesus, and everything changed. Now, here's where we arrive at the question that matters for us.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

That was two thousand years ago. What about now? Hebrews gives us an incredibly simple statement. Hebrews 13, 8. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus who still who he the Jesus who healed people in the Gospels is still Jesus. The Jesus who had compassion on suffering people is still Jesus. The Jesus who heard desperate prayers is still Jesus. And the Jesus who had authority over sickness is still Jesus. So here's a tough question. Does that mean that everyone who prays for healing will be healed?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

No.

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And we're going to spend a significant amount of time talking about that because I refuse to give you an answer that the scripture doesn't give us. But it does mean something important. We still have permission to ask. We can pray boldly. We can pray specifically. We can ask God to heal. We can ask him to intervene. And we can ask him to do something that doctors can't explain. But here's the key, the crux of all of it.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

We have to trust him with the answer. And that's where I find myself today. Look, I prayed.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Plenty of people around me prayed. And I was prepping myself for the possibility of getting a new heart. And that is not a small thing, especially if you know me. I'm a big man, so it was going to be a big heart. So that is not a small thing. And now I'm being told, ah, you're good, man.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

There's other stuff we can do to help you out. So what am I supposed to do with it?

SPEAKER_02 18:07

I could overanalyze it. I could try and explain it away. I could spend all my time trying to determine exactly where medicine ends and God's intervention begins. And there's certainly a place for understanding the medical side of what happened because I do. But before I do any of that, I want to do something much simpler.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I want to say thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you for another day. Thank you for an answer I desperately hoped for. Thank you for doctors. Thank you for medicine. Thank you to everyone who prayed.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Thank you for carrying me through this time when I didn't know how this story was going to end. And thank you so much that today, right now, that story looks different. I don't want to be ignorant of the fact that somewhere right now someone else is praying just as hard as I did. Someone else's family is praying. Someone else is sitting in a hospital room or waiting for test results. Someone else believes with everything that they have that God can heal them. And sometimes the answer is not the one they wanted. So if I'm going to stand here and call what happened to me a miracle, I have to be willing to ask the extremely uncomfortable question.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Why me? And I'm I'm I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Why does one answer one person get the answer they prayed for and someone else doesn't? Was my faith stronger? Absolutely not. Did I pray better? Anybody who's heard me pray will probably tell you no. Did God love me more? No. He loves all of us. And if we're gonna talk honestly about modern-day miracles, we have to talk about that. Because the Bible doesn't teach us that enough faith guarantees healing. And it doesn't teach us that unanswered prayer means God has abandoned us. So we're gonna look at what scripture actually says about praying for miracles today. And then later we'll confront the hardest question of all. Why doesn't God heal everyone? Because if we're gonna celebrate the miracle, we also have to sit beside the person who's still waiting for those. So we establish something important. Miracles are not some strange little side note in Christianity. They're woven throughout scripture, and Christianity itself stands or falls on the greatest miracle of all, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there's still an obvious question.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

That was then. What about now?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

We read stories about Moses parting the Red Sea and Elijah calling down fire and Jesus healing the sick, Peter and John healing a man who couldn't walk, Paul performing different signs and wonders wonders, but we're living roughly two thousand years later. So question begs do miracles still happen, or does something change? And the truth is Christianity itself is divided on this. Faithful Bible-believing Christians don't all agree on exactly how miraculous gifts operate today. There are Christians who believe certain miraculous spiritual gifts were primarily signs associated with the first apostles and the establishment of the early church. And that position is often called cessationism. And then there are Christians who believe that miraculous gifts described in the New Testament continue to operate in the church today. And that's commonly called continuationism. And there are Christians who land somewhere in between. And I'm not going to pretend that this is a debate we're going to settle in 30 minutes. And honestly, I don't think we need to, because there is a distinction that's really important here. We can debate whether every miraculous spiritual gift operates today exactly as it did in the book of Acts. But that is a different question from asking does God or can God still perform a miracle? Because if God God is still God, then God is still capable of acting. See, I don't believe Scripture gives us any reason to conclude that God somehow lost his ability to intervene his creation when the apostolic age ended. I can't talk. I'm a mess, by the way. It's a tough subject. Scripture continues to tell believers to pray, including to pray for healing. James 5, 13 through 16 says, Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of the prayer of the and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. That's pretty direct. If someone is suffering, pray. If they're sick, pray. If another believer needs healing, pray. James doesn't tell Christians to shrug their shoulders and say, well, it is what it is. Whatever happens, happens. He tells them to ask God. And notice something else. Prayer is not presented here as like a last resort. You know how sometimes we say, well, there's nothing left to do except pray. Think about how strange that sentence actually is. There's nothing left to do except for talk to the creator of the universe. Prayer shouldn't be the emergency lever we pull after everything else fails. Prayer should be part of the entire journey. Before the appointment, during the treatment, after the diagnosis, before the surgery, while you're taking the medication, while the doctors are doing everything they know how to do, we should be praying.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

And I want to stop here because this matters to me personally. There are a handful of people that create a false choice.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Either God healed you or medicine healed you. Some people will listen to this and go, Dennis, this wasn't a miracle. This was, you know, a reversal of a decision. This was, you know, you living better, getting better. I don't know. They'll explain it away medically a million different ways. But why do those things have to be mutually exclusive? If you believe God created human beings with intelligence, why wouldn't medical knowledge be one of the ways his provision reaches us? Luke, who wrote both Luke and Acts, is identified in Scripture as a physician. Colossians 4 14, Luke, the beloved physician, greets you as does Demas. Paul doesn't criticize Luke for practicing medicine. He calls him the beloved physician. So I don't think taking medication means you lack faith. I don't think having surgery means you don't trust God. Or following your doctor's instructions somehow competes with prayer. I can thank God for what he's doing, and I can thank the medical team that's treating me. Those things don't cancel each other out. Look, maybe sometimes God's provision looks spectacular.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

And maybe sometimes God's provision wears scrubs.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Let's look at one of the passages at the center of the conversation about miraculous gifts. Paul writes this to the Church of Corinth in 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 11. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empire empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit. To another, faith by the same spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one spirit, and to another the working of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. There's something incredibly important in that last sentence, as he wills. The gifts belong to God, the power belongs to God, the decision belongs to God. We don't control him, we don't manufacture miracles, we don't manipulate God into doing what we want by reaching some imaginary level of faith. God acts as he wills. And that's important because it protects us from turning miracles into formulas. And there's another important principle that we see throughout scripture. Biblical miracles aren't primarily about creating spectacle. They're signs, they point somewhere, and ultimately they point towards God. Look at what happens in Acts chapter three. Peter and John encounter a man who has been unable to walk from birth. In Acts 3, 1 through 10. Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man, lame from birth, was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the beautiful gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Seeing Peter and John about to go in the temple, he asked to receive alms.

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And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, Look at us. And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. I love what this guy does after he's healed. He's walking, he's leaping, and really most importantly, he's praising God. And that miracle points beyond the miracle. It points to God. And Peter makes absolutely sure nobody misunderstands where the power came from. A few verses later, the crowd is staring at Peter and John, and Peter basically says, Why are you looking at us? Acts 3.12. And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people, men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? See, that's important because Peter doesn't build a brand around himself. He doesn't say, Look how powerful my faith is. He immediately redirects the attention and says, This wasn't me. That's one of the biblical tests I think we should apply whenever somebody claims something miraculous has happened. Who gets the glory?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

The person? The preacher? The ministry? Or God?

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Because genuine miracles aren't advertisements for human beings. They all point to Jesus. Now I want to balance everything I just said because Christians can make mistakes in both directions. One extreme says miracles don't happen anymore. Everything must have a natural explanation. Don't even entertain the possibility that God intervened. But then there's another extreme. Everything becomes a miracle. Every coincidence is a sign. Every feeling becomes a word from God. Every recovery becomes a supernatural healing. Every unexplained event becomes divine intervention. And I don't think we really need either extreme. We can be discerning and still believe that God acts. We can ask medical questions and still pray. We can investigate explanations and still worship. We don't have to shut down our brains to believe in miracles. And we don't have to shut down our faith to appreciate science.

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And that's where I come back to what's happening in my life.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

I am most certainly not going to tell you I can scientifically prove God performed a miracle in my heart. I can't. But what I can tell you is this I was facing the possibility of a heart transplant. I prayed, people prayed, doctors treated me, medicine did what medicine does, and now I'm being told I don't need a transplant. You can call it medical improvement, you talk about treatment response, you can explain the physiology, and all those things may be true, and I'm still gonna look forward to heaven and I'm gonna say thank you.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Because I don't need to understand every mechanism to recognize a gift. Everything we've talked about really has sounded wonderful. So here's where we get not as wonderful.

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High five. But once again, there's a person out there saying, I did all of that. Dennis, I did that. I prayed. My church prayed, my family prayed, I believed.

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And the person that I loved is no longer with me. Or I did that, I prayed.

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Cancer came back. My marriage didn't last. That diagnosis didn't change, the treatment didn't work, the miracle that I so desperately needed never came.

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So, what do we do with your story?

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Because if I celebrate what God has done in my life without making room for your unanswered prayer, I'm not giving you the whole biblical picture. And look, the Bible doesn't run away from that question. Paul prayed for something to be taken away and God said no. We talked about it. There's a whole episode, what if God says no? God says no. Jesus himself prayed in Gethsemane and still went to the cross.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

So if God can heal, why doesn't he heal everyone?

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I'm gonna tell you right now, we're gonna keep looking, and whatever answer we find, it will not be you just didn't have enough faith.

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Because that's not the gospel.

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Celebrating a miracle is easy. Explaining why someone else didn't receive one is not. So I want to be really careful here because, like I said, someone listening to this has prayed for healing and didn't get it. Either you prayed for yourself or your spouse or a parent or a child or a friend. Maybe the entire church prayed, maybe you fasted, maybe people laid hands on them, maybe you believed with everything that you had that the test was going to come back negative and it still came back positive. The disease progressed, the treatment didn't work, or the person that you loved is no longer with us. And you hear someone like me say, I prayed, and now I don't need a heart transplant. And maybe there's a little part of you, maybe, maybe, there's a little part of you that wonders, why him? Why not me?

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Why didn't God do that for the person that I loved? Those aren't bad questions.

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Those are human questions. And I'm not going to insult you by pretending that I have a simple answer because I don't. But I can tell you a few things that the Bible makes very clear. And the first one is incredibly important. I said it before.

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It is not because you didn't have enough faith. There's a danger to that thought.

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The thought that you just needed enough faith, or you just need more faith. In fact, there's a version of Christianity that says, if you're sick, believe hard enough, pray hard enough, have enough faith, speak the right words, and God will heal you. And if healing doesn't happen, somehow the blame comes back to you. And I think that's incredibly cruel to tell someone who's suffering. More importantly, I don't think it's what scripture teaches. Faith matters. Don't get me wrong. Jesus absolutely talks about faith. But it's not a currency that we accumulate until we have enough to purchase a miracle from God. God's not obligated to do what we ask simply because we believe strongly enough. Because if that were true, a prayer wouldn't be a prayer, it'd be a transaction. And God would no longer be God.

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We would be.

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This is the man who encountered the risen Jesus. He planted churches. In fact, he wrote much of the New Testament. This is a man that God used in extraordinary ways. And Paul had something in his life that he desperately wanted God to remove. He called it a thorn in the flesh. You guys have heard this story before. We've talked about this. We don't know exactly what it was. People have debated it for centuries, but we know Paul wanted it gone and he prayed about it not once, but three times. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Paul prayed, God heard him, and God's answer was no. Not because he didn't have faith or that he prayed wrong, and not because Paul wasn't spiritual enough. God simply had a purpose that Paul couldn't see. I hope that this changes the way we think about unanswered prayers. Because God, his refusal to remove something isn't evidence that he's abandoned us. Sometimes his grace meets us inside the thing we desperately wanted him to remove. Jesus even prayed and didn't get the response he was hoping for. The night before the crucifixion, Jesus knew exactly what was coming. He knew the suffering, the humiliation, the cross, and he still prayed. Matthew 26, 36 through 39. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me. And going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

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Think about that.

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Jesus asks, let this cup pass from me. And then, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. That's not weak faith. That's perfect faith. Because faith isn't believing strongly enough that God will do exactly what I want. Biblical faith is trusting God, even when he doesn't do what I want. That is a very amazing definition of faith. Sometimes we think faith means saying, I know God's going to heal me. But unless God specifically promised that outcome, we don't know that. Faith says something different. Faith says, I know God can heal me.

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And then, but I trust him, even if he doesn't. Those are incredibly different words. And they're incredibly difficult to say.

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But we've heard them before. Three men in the book of Daniel were facing execution because they refused to worship King Nebuchadnezzar's golden image. And they were about to be thrown into a furnace. And listen to what they told the king. Daniel 3, verses 16 through 18. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedneco answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. There it is. Three of the most powerful words of faith in the Bible.

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What three words? But if not.

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You see, God can. We believe he can. We're asking him to.

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But if not, he's still God. And that's faith. Now we arrive to the question that I cannot answer.

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I can't answer a lot of questions, but the one that relates to this podcast.

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Why does one person recover and another person doesn't?

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Why does one family receive the phone call they've been begging God for? And why does another family receive the phone call they've been terrified of?

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I don't know.

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And I don't think pretending to know honors God in any form or fashion. There are mysteries we simply aren't given the answers to. Isaiah reminds us of the distance between God's understanding and ours. Isaiah 55, 8 through 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. That verse doesn't make suffering painless. It doesn't answer every why, but it reminds us that our inability to understand God's actions doesn't mean that God has stopped being God. You see, there are things that we see from ground level. God sees the entire story. Sometimes we don't get the explanation that we desperately want.

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There's something else I want to say along these veins.

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If what happened to me is a miracle, it does not mean that God loves me more than one person who still needs that heart transplant. It doesn't mean that my prayers were better. It doesn't mean the people praying for me had more faith or that somehow I earned God's favor. Grace doesn't work that way. A miracle is not a trophy or a spiritual achievement. It's grace. And grace, by definition, is 100% undeserved. And that's why the only response is humility. Not look how strong my faith was, but look how good God has been to me. I want to be careful saying this because I never want to minimize someone's suffering. If you're praying for healing, it is okay to want healing. Or if you're praying for someone that you love to survive, it is okay to desperately want that. We don't have to pretend those things don't matter, but scripture teaches us that God's ultimate promise isn't that we will avoid suffering. His promise is that suffering doesn't get the final word. Paul writes in Romans 8, 35 through 39, who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Read that again.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

And notice what Paul doesn't say. He doesn't say Christians won't experience suffering. He says suffering cannot separate us from Christ. Even death can't separate us from Christ. And that is the Christian hope. So today, yeah, I'm celebrating. I am grateful. I am overwhelmed. And I will continually thank God for what has happened in my life. I'm going to thank him for the doctors, the medicine, the people that prayed, the people who encouraged me. And I'm going to call what happened a miracle. But I'm not going to turn that into somebody else's condemnation. I'm not going to tell the person still waiting that you need more faith. Or that the grieving family, I'm not going to say you didn't pray hard enough. I'm not going to pretend I understand why my story went in this direction and someone else's didn't. Instead, I will sit beside them and I will pray with them and I will believe with them and I will remind them.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

God is still with you. So if miracles still happen, but they're not guaranteed, how should we pray?

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Should we pray boldly for healing? Absolutely. Should we expect God to act? Yes. Should we demand a particular outcome? No. So in this last piece, we're going to talk about what it actually looks like to pray for a miracle. How to pray boldly without trying to control God. And I will emphasize again, without trying to control God. We'll talk about how to use medicine without believing medicine replaces God. How to celebrate extraordinary answers without pretending that we understand every unanswered prayer. And then I want to come back one final time to the news I received because after spending so much time on this podcast talking about trusting God when I don't understand, today I finally get to talk about what happens when the answer is one that you've desperately been praying for.

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So miracles are woven throughout scripture.

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We talked about the fact that Christians may disagree about miraculous spiritual gifts today, while still believing that God is completely capable of acting in extraordinary ways. We talked about healing, we've talked about medicine, we've talked about unanswered prayer, and about Paul asking to remove a thorn and God saying no. We talked about Jesus in Gethsemane praying, not my will but yours. We've talked about three men standing in front of a furnace saying, Yeah, God can save us. But even if he doesn't, we're still not walking away from him.

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So where's that leave us now? How should we pray?

SPEAKER_02 55:34

And I think the answer is pretty simple. Be bold, be specific, and be expectant.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

And most of all, surrender.

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Sometimes I think Christians are afraid to ask God for big things. We hedge our prayers, we protect ourselves from disappointment. We say things like, God, I know this probably won't happen, but before we've even finished asking, but Scripture doesn't tell us to approach God timidly. Listen to Hebrews, Hebrews 4, 14 through 16. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Then let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. I love that. With confidence, not arrogance, not entitlement, but confidence.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Because we are not approaching a stranger, we're approaching our Father through Jesus Christ. So if you're sick, ask God to heal you.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

If someone you love is sick, ask God to heal them. If the doctors say something looks impossible, you are absolutely allowed to ask God for the impossible. Remember what Jesus said, what is impossible with man is possible with God. So pray big.

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Pray big. Be specific.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

You see, there's something else we see repeatedly in scripture. People told Jesus exactly what they wanted. Mark chapter 10, a blind man named Bartolemaeus hears that Jesus is passing by and begins crying out for him. And eventually Jesus calls him over. And Jesus asks him what really seems like a strange question. Mark 10, 51, 52. And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, Go your way. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Jesus knew Bartolemaus was blind. He didn't need the information. But he wanted him to ask, What do you want me to do for you? And Bartolemaus answered specifically, I want to see. See, there's something beautiful about that kind of prayer. Not just, God, can you just make stuff better for me? But God, this is what I'm asking you for. I'm asking for a lot, but in this one, for me, it meant praying about my heart. Not vaguely, but specifically. God, I don't want a heart transplant. If it is your will, heal my heart. Strengthen it. Let the treatment work. Let the numbers change. Let there be another way.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

We are still on that journey, folks. If I don't take care of myself, my heart could go back in the other direction. And if it does, I'm not walking away from the one who answered my prayers. But I can tell you I'm not squandering this second chance. Because I prayed for this and I was specific.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

And by his grace alone, right now I have that opportunity. See, there's nothing wrong with telling God exactly what you want. Jesus did it in Gethsemane. Lord, let this cup pass from me. The surrender came afterwards, but first he asked. And this is where prayer becomes difficult because after we say, God, here's what I want, we eventually have to add, but I trust you. And that's not easy. Especially when the thing we're praying about is completely life-changing. But you see, that's the difference between faith and trying to control God. Jesus gave us the model, Matthew 26, 39, and going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And that's the prayer. See, here's what I want, God. Here's what I'm asking. Here's what I'm begging you for. And I still trust you with the answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

That's not giving up. That's surrender. I want to come back to something quickly before I end, because I think it's important.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:10

Praying for a miracle doesn't mean refusing medical treatment. Trusting God doesn't mean ignoring doctors. See, faith and medicine don't have to stand on opposite sides of the room glaring at each other. If you're sick, pray. Yes. But go to the doctor. Take the medication. Ask questions. Get a second opinion if you need one. Follow your treatment plans and pray through every doggone bit of it. I don't think God is threatened by medicine. If anything, I think we should be incredibly grateful for it. The knowledge, the technology, the people who spend their lives learning how to care for the human body. I can thank God for healing and thank the people that he may have used along the way. There's one more part of miracles that we don't talk about enough. Gratitude. Luke tells us about ten men with leprosy who encountered Jesus. All ten were healed, but something really interesting happened afterwards. Luke 17, 11 through 19. On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw when he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answered, Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return to give praise to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, Rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. Ten received the gift, but only one came back. I don't want to be one of the nine. I don't want to spend months praying and then receive incredible news and simply move on with my life. I want to turn around.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

I want to come back and I want to say thank you. There's another danger here.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

Sometimes we become so obsessed with miracles that miracles become the point of Christianity. They're not. Healing is wonderful, but eventually every person healed in the Bible still died. Lazarus was raised from the dead. Amazing. But Lazarus eventually died again. Physical healing wasn't the ultimate destination. Jesus was. The greatest miracle God offers isn't a healthier body, it's a resurrected life. Forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation with God, eternal life through Jesus Christ. That's why miracles should always point beyond themselves. They point us to the one who still performs them. So do miracles still happen? And that's the question we started with. And after everything we talked about, here's where I land. Yes, I believe God still acts. I believe God still heals. I believe God still intervenes. And I believe we should still pray for things that seem impossible. But I also believe we need humility when we use the word miracle. I can't scientifically prove to you that God supernaturally changed me. I'm not even interested in pretending that I can. There are doctors involved in my story, and there will continue to be. There are medications and treatments and medical explanations that matter. And I am grateful for every single one of them. But none of those things prevent me from believing that God has been working through this entire story. Because maybe the question isn't was God, was it God or medicine? Maybe sometimes the answer is yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:40

It was both.

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I don't know why someone else's story doesn't. I don't know why some prayers receive the answer we desperately wanted, while others are met with silence. But I have spent enough time walking with God to know that I don't have all those answers, and I don't think I'm supposed to. But I do know this. I have talked on this podcast about trusting God when he says no. I've talked about following him when I don't understand what he's doing. I've talked about faith when life hurts. I've talked about waiting. I've talked about doubt. I've talked about what happens when God feels silent. And today, I get to talk about something different. Today, I get to tell you what happened when the answer I desperately wanted was yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

And I don't want to rush past that.

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I don't want to analyze it until I've removed every ounce of wonder. I don't want to become so sophisticated that gratitude feels naive. So today I'm gonna say it again. I've said it a hundred times. Thank you. Thank you, God, for carrying me when I was afraid. Thank you for my family. Thank you for the people who prayed for me, the doctors, the nurses, for the medicine. For every person that you've used throughout my journey, and for every day that you've given me. And thank you that today I don't need a heart transplant.

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Maybe you're listening today and you are waiting for your miracle.

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Keep praying. Ask boldly. Ask specifically. And believe that God can. Use every resource he's put in front of you and then trust him. Look, I can't promise you're gonna get the answer you're hoping for. Nobody, honestly, teaching scripture can. But I can promise you something better. Whatever the answer, you will not face it alone. God is still God when the answer is yes, but God is still God when the answer is wait. And God is still God when we don't understand the answer at all. So pray for that miracle. Believe God can do it, and trust the miracle worker more than the miracle itself. Thank you for listening to Bible basically. Sorry, I'm kind of a mess. This episode is obviously a little more personal than most of them. And if you've been praying for me, thank you. Seriously, thank you. And if you know someone who's waiting on their own miracle right now, then, you know, send them this episode. Not because I can promise them how their story ends, but sometimes we all need to be reminded that God is still listening, God is still working, and that God is still worthy of our trust, whether we're celebrating or waiting or trying to understand. Until next time, let's keep figuring out faith together.