Throughout the Bible, God told people to do out-of-the-ordinary things to receive a miracle. To man’s logic, it seemed unreasonable, even ridiculous sometimes. But each time someone obeyed God’s instruction, they received the miraculous.
Take, for instance, Noah. God told him to build an ark when the earth had never experienced rain. God told Naaman through the prophet Elisha to dip seven times in water to get healed of leprosy. God told King Jehoshaphat to put the praise and worship team in front of the army when they went to war. To remedy a shortage of wine, Jesus instructed that water should be put into clay pots and then a sample given to the master of ceremonies. The list of unreasonable instructions goes on…but so do the miracles that resulted.
Stopping the Miracle
God is no different today. When we need a miracle, He may tell us to do something unreasonable to get the result we need. Unfortunately, our human minds often get in the way of the miracle because we talk ourselves out of obeying. Our hang-ups generally come in the form of fear, pride, confusion, or having confidence in someone else more than God.
Fear
Fear shows up in different forms. We may fear not having enough resources to carry out what God told us to do. We’re afraid we’ll get hurt or be forced out of our comfort zone. We’re afraid to give up resources and dreams. We may even be afraid of what other people might say about our actions. Regardless of the reason, fear freezes us from obeying God’s command.
Pride
It’s often subtle, but pride can hinder our obedience, too. We want to do things our way because we are confident in our experience and education. We’re planners and feel like we must have everything organized before we begin. Even worse, we want to be in full control of our lives. This, too, shuts down God’s plan.
Confusion
Sometimes our brain can get in the way of our obedience. We start to reason things through, questioning whether it’s God or our thoughts telling us what to do. Overthinking becomes our worst enemy—many times triggered by the devil, the king of confusion. Once again, God’s plan is put on hold.
Confidence in Man
Our confidence in man can also hinder us from doing the unreasonable. We have put so much trust in the wisdom of man, that our trust in the wisdom of God is small. Man’s intellect, research, and experiences have more draw on us than any truth from God’s Word. The result? No miracle from God in operation in our lives.
There may be many other specific hindrances, but the root problem is that we don’t trust God—have faith in Him and His Word. The reason our faith in His Word is small is because our faith in His person is small. But to receive any miracle from God, we must have faith. And out of that faith must come action—even if it means doing something that seems unreasonable.
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6, NKJV).
To be continued…
Christa Madrid 