I hope you had a wonderful week as I did. I also hope that this blog isn't surrealistic and every time you read this you don't think: "Oh Devan just has a perfect spiritual life and never has a hard day in his life" Although I only highlight was I have learned during the week. My life, just as well as yours, has ups and downs. There are hardships and disappointments. There are trials and roadblocks. I am positive that each of us are struggling in someway or another. What makes us different is what we do with each difficult moment and how we move foreword letting the Lord direct us.
Sometimes all we think we need is a miracle to make everything better. If I could just have this one thing in my life, all would be well, right? All of us could think of one thing that they wished they could have in their life or some event that they wish would happen right now. Have miracles ceased among the children of men? Of course not! We see left and right miracles that happen in others' lives but, why does that not happen to me? A scripture in Matthew this week helped me learn the principle of miracles, how they work and how I should seek them.
Matthew 8:2 "And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean"
Now let me provide some context for this verse because I love it. This is right after Christ finishes His Sermon on the Mount. He has just taught His fellow Jews the real power and meaning behind the Law of Moses that most have not even thought about. So you can imagine Jesus walking off the mountain with this "multitude" behind him. All of the sudden, a leper appears and is walking towards them. Now, we all like to think if a diseased person walked toward us, we would have the compassion necessary to ask what they need. The truth is, most of us would probably feel disgust with an approaching leper that could possibly infect you. Not to mention the tradition of the Jews that if you touched a leper, you had to cleanse yourself in the temple not soon after. So traditionally and maybe just common sense says, "Do not touch the leper". You can almost feel the crowd behind Jesus gasp as He reaches out to heal this leper.
The point that I would like to make is in the words of the leper and how this shows us what we can really ask Jesus when we want a miracle. The truth is that many of our prayers remain unanswered and there is no way of knowing if we will ever receive our miracle. So what can we do? "Lord" we can worship. We can give thanks to the person that gave us life. We can worship the person that allowed us to become cleansed from sin and have the power to overcome it. "If thou wilt" As hard as it is too accept, we must be ready to not receive a miracle. His thoughts are not our thoughts; His timing is not our timing. "Thou canst make me clean" Despite of receiving a miracle or not, we must have full faith and full hope that whatever the miracle that the Lord can perform it. We must stray away from thinking that miracles just happen to other people. They can happen to us because we have faith that nothing is impossible with the Lord.
What does this mean for us today? When we kneel down to ask for a miracle, we can think of the begging leper. We can be full of faith that the Lord can perform this miracle but at the same time accept if we are not granted such a miracle. By so doing, our faith is increased in the glorious plan of our Heavenly Father. He is the master architect and maybe someday we will be a tool in His vast work.
I apologize that this was a little longer. I hope it brightens your day!
-Devan Alder
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