Better Than Miracles

When God does a miracle, it is a wonderful thing, and no person of faith would deny that. A miracle is something that God causes to happen, that could not, and would not happen that way in the natural realm. Some people call things miracles that really aren’t miracles, at all, they are just very good things that happen to them.

I know a lady whose grandson came home from Iraq, safe and sound, and she said to me, “It’s a miracle!” Now, I didn’t argue with her about it, but it wasn’t really a miracle. I knew another lady who hadn’t heard from her son for a number of years. He was rebellious and inconsiderate, and he just drove off one day and years went by with her not really knowing if he was alive or dead. I visited this lady one day, in the fall of the year, and she said, “You know I always ask you to pray for Jimmy. God has told me in my heart that Jimmy’s coming home. He’ll be here for Christmas.” I saw her less than a week before Christmas, and the boy still hadn’t come home, but she told me, “Jimmy will be home for Christmas.” Now, I have to confess, I didn’t have the faith she had. Of course, God hadn’t told me that the boy was coming home, and I wasn’t sure that it was really God who had told her. But she was sure. About 8 a.m. on Christmas morning, I got a call from this dear lady, and the first thing she said was, “Guess who was knocking on my door about 10 o’clock last night?” Well, you guessed it, it was Jimmy. But, as wonderful as that was, it really wasn’t a miracle, it was the Lord giving that lady some divine insight as a result of her fervent prayers.

A miracle is when God causes something happens that defies logic. A preacher I know desperately needed two tires for his car and didn’t have the money to buy them. He prayed and said, “God, I’m Yours and everything in my possession is Yours, and You know that old car of Yours desperately needs two tires. What are You going to do?” He had started on a little 30 mile trip, a couple of days later, and he was going up an on-ramp onto a four lane highway, when a tire truck came by at a high rate of speed, and two tires fell off. He stopped and picked up the tires, put them in his trunk and drove to the tire store where that truck was from and told them of the incident. The man went and checked the truck and said, “We didn’t lose them.” He asked if there were another tire store of this same franchise in the area and was told the nearest one was 80 miles away, but that he doubted they were in this area. He said, “Well, what should I do about the tires?” The man said, “Consider them yours.” He went out and raised his trunk lid and looked at the tires, and they were the exact size he needed! Now, that’s a miracle!

I heard a testimony, just two weeks ago, about a man who was diagnosed with lung cancer, but then when he went back to see the doctor on his next visit, the doctor said, “I don’t understand it, but you don’t have cancer.” Now, that’s a miracle.

When I was a boy, I had completely lost the hearing in my left ear, and my ear drum was no longer functioning. On top of that, my right ear was in very bad shape, and my hearing was very limited. My mother got everybody she could think of to pray for me, and she pulled me up to her one day and said, “Do you believe God can heal your ears?” I said, “Yes ma’am,” and we prayed for God to heal me. I never felt anything special, but very shortly after that, I realized I could hear with both my ears, and now, more than 50 years later, my hearing is fine. That’s a miracle!

I’ve said all that to establish with you that I believe in miracles, and I myself am a product of God’s miracle working power. But, there is something better than miracles, and that’s to live under God’s divine favor, or as we often call it, God’s blessing. I want to give you three reasons God’s blessing is better than God’s miracle:

BLESSINGS ARE PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

A miracle is what God uses to deliver people out of crises situations, but His blessing on your life will keep you from getting into those crises situations, in the first place.

You would be much better off to maintain your automobile with frequent oil changes and other periodic maintenance, than to drive until it quits, and then have to fix it. Your experience with that automobile will be much more pleasant. The abundant life, of which Jesus spoke in John 10:10 is a life of the finest possible quality.