GOD - HEALING AND MIRACLES - 1- INTRODUCTION

HEALING AND MIRACLES - INTRODUCTION

 Wonderful people can come upon hard times physically, emotionally, and through various disabilities associated with accidents. aging, diseases, injury, abuse, poor choices, and various personal and natural disasters.  Some are chronic conditions that may have solutions or relief in ways not understood by the afflicted.  Family members may come to need help with the situation as much as the one perceived to have the disability.  I decided to share my views through this blog when I became aware of someone close to me who was trying to help a couple with a problem.  I wanted to talk to the couple to share some of the things in this series of posts.  But I was not in a position to do so, and I thought there were many more people needing the same coaching, so these posts might meet the needs of more without the abrasive aspects of my personality interfering.

When social agencies are not sufficient, and even when they are, prayer is worth considering.  The five following posts (posted over five preceding dates) are somewhat geared for the more serious personal problems, but God is there for us for much lesser things, often without our asking.  They may be helpful early in the process before the individual(s) become the subject of a family intervention, or if there is no one to intervene.

The anecdote about the driver almost late for an important appointment and circling the rows of the filled parking lot thinking “God if you find me a parking spot I’ll make a big donation to charity”, then as the corner is turned revealing an open space continues thinking “never mind, I found one myself,” may help us see how we operate when needs are satisfied.  Solutions arrived at through requests for divine help can easily become past history, especially when a natural event can be seen as the cause.  Before modern medical help for childhood asthma was available I was not able to even think of praying when I was gasping for breath during severe episodes.  But those times passed relatively quickly though they seemed like an eternity.  I don’t have all the answers, so you should be able to surpass me in your understanding.  Having something to think about is a beginning.

The five following posts listed were posted in reverse order so they would be archived in proper order for those who proceed down the sequence from this one.

Post 2 – Eligibility may help you realize everyone is created by the same God and is loved as a child of God.

Post 3 – Expectations may prepare you for answers to your prayer that aren’t exactly according to your specifications.

Post 4 – Who to ask may help if you are intimidated by approaching God directly.

Post 5 – How to ask may give you some comfort in the form of your plea.

Post 6 – Saying thank you has benefits.

Joe Engemann      Kalamazoo, Michigan     September 14, 2016

GOD - HEALING AND MIRACLES - 2 - ELIGIBILITY

GOD / HEALING AND MIRACLES / 2 – ELIGIBLITY

Your eligibility for receiving a miraculous cure or other aid came with your birth as a child of God.  Do you think the only God created you with an evolutionary process of near infinite complexity and duration and then would give up on you?  Not a chance.  

http://evolutioninsights.blogspot.com/2013/06/god-and-people.html  is an early post that may give you a reason to think God loves you.  If you read the Bible you can see how even people with serious failings were and are loved by God; but that is not an endorsement for deliberately failing.  Jesus makes statements showing that God desires salvation for all of us.  Luke 4:38-44 is a gospel reading that tells of Jesus curing many with no indication of his using an interrogation process or evaluating them.  Moses and David play significant roles in the history of God’s people and each was involved in the killing of another person.

To determine your eligibility for divine help, use the following check list and check items that describe actions you did without being forced to do so,

Have you ever? -

___ smiled at someone

___ helped someone without being asked

___ complimented someone

___ put a penny in a donation receptacle

___ donated a million dollars to charity

___ helped in a soup kitchen

___ put a dollar or a dime in the Salvation Army bell-ringers pot

___ said a prayer for someone else

___ said thank you

___ voted for the best candidate

Count the number of checks.  If 0, keep trying.  If 1, you are eligible.  If 2 to 10, you are still eligible.

Remorse for past moral failings is often expressed by prisoners who seem to accept their confinement.  Unfortunately, the legal system is not geared up to return them to a free life, execution or confinement is still continued, but they are often more content (I have no statistics to support this statement, just a lifetime of reading news accounts and magazine articles of such instances).

People in danger of death during wartime and peacetime personal disasters that usually do result in death have appealed to God and received remarkable and miraculous rescues.  I used to keep such things in a file, but most were a bit long to include here, even if I could find them.

I have been the recipient of a few things that I put in the miraculous category because they were so swift in timing and duration.  Because some involved personal failings and/or are of embarrassing content I will not relate them.  If you have such things, talk to Jesus about them, he already knows more about it than we do.  Then don’t dwell on the past, accept the present, and just revel in the future.

Joe Engemann    Kalamazoo, Michigan     September 13. 2016

GOD - HEALING AND MIRACLES - 3 - EXPECTATIONS

GOD / HEALING AND MIRACLES / 3 – EXPECTATIONS

Answers to prayers may not come in the form we expect.  It may not be just a joke when someone says “I got the answer to my prayers, it was “no”’.  The answer may vary in its time scale.  If you are praying to find a suitable life partner, don’t insist that the next person to ring the doorbell will be the one.  It is possible that you won’t get the hoped for answer to your prayers, but later realize how fortunate you are that your prayers weren’t answered to your specifications.  The traffic jam that made you miss the plane that crashed may be in that category of answers.

Cure, relief, or the outcome you want is likely to be the outcome most pleasing to you.  But other answers are also worthwhile.

Acceptance of the unwanted condition is a satisfying outcome.  It should not be just giving up, but it can be a happy life anyway.  If you are not miserable and dwelling on your problems, the people around you will be happier and it should make you happier too.  But keep the prayers going, maybe better times are coming.

Understanding

When acceptance is based on a fatalistic view of the world it may provide some degree of release from anguish.  But true peace may be within reach if you consider how many of the first apostles suffered worldly woes and martyrdom.  They knew the worldly life was temporary and expected an eternal spiritual life with rewards far beyond worldly suffering, even though their vision of that world was clouded by earthly limitations.  Being witness to the life, teachings, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus made that belief and their expectations a certainty.  The certainty is not about the details of the future as seen by those who think in terms, of health, wealth and wives, those may be meaningless as our relationship with God reaches fulfillment.

If your expectations aren’t met, I hope you will at least have happy surprises.  I’ve heard it said, if your goals are met, you’ve set your sights too low.

Joe Engemann    Kalamazoo, Michigan    September 12,  2016