Writers are thinkers.
We spend a great deal of time reflecting on plots, characterizations and the best topics for an online post.
So last week, I spent some time thinking about miracles.
We’ve all heard about miracles of healing — maybe even personally experienced one or two. And various publications focus on miraculous stories.
These stories encourage us, especially when life is hard — like it is now — during Covid-19 and its dastardly side effects.
But even as I pray for a global miracle, I reflect on the possibility of leveled miracles.
Some supernatural happenings always occur: the beauty of birth for any species, that phone call about a new job, a card that arrives at just the right time.
Daily miracles that turn the ordinary into something inexplicably extraordinary.
The Israelites watched God perform several miracles that underscored he was on their side (Exodus 7-12).
- The Nile River turned to blood
- Swarms of gnats, flies and grasshoppers
- The deaths of the firstborns
But as amazing as these events were, the hapless and sometimes unbelieving Israelites needed a greater miracle.
Just as they escaped from Egypt, they faced the Red Sea. Behind them galloped the Egyptian army, ready to capture them and force them back into slavery.
So God showed up with a greater miracle.
He sent a strong east wind that divided the water and turned the pathway into dry land. Think Charleston Heston, Cecille B. DeMille and the Ten Commandments 1956 movie.
Can you imagine how frightening it must have been to step between those walls of water? Did they see fish swimming and bumping their snouts against an invisible wall? Did they wonder, what happens if the water suddenly gives way?
But they crossed safely on the other side while Pharaoh and his army perished as God released the torrent.
Today, we need a greater miracle. We’ve faced epidemics before, and scientists have created miraculous vaccines.
But we need more than the right dosage of the correct DNA that destroys Covid-19. We need:
- Jobs created and/or restored for the thousands of unemployed
- Comfort for those who have lost loved ones, now approaching 200,000 families
- Justice for those who died because their skin wasn’t paisley white
- Strong leadership and courage to do the right thing, no matter which aisle they sit on
- Women and children rescued and cared for as domestic violence has exponentially increased in 2020
We need solutions to so many problems, no one person can solve them. And this is definitely NOT a political post.
We need a greater miracle.
In times of crisis, our leaders have called for a national fasting and prayer day. Our current time period begs for a mindset of humility, for all of us to cry out, fall to our knees and ask God to perform a greater miracle.
Without divine intervention and global change of heart, we may be facing a social Armageddon with lasting consequences. How many of us are willing to walk through those waters?
God, please, heal our land. Move back the waters once more and let us travel peacefully to the Promised Land.
©2020 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved
For more essays about hope, check out Uploading Faith.