Doug Van Pelt

Miracles Do Happen

One of the last things I do before my workday begins is powering up my computer. It's an emachine with Windows XP Home Edition and a nice 20" Misubishi monitor. It serves me well. I try to do my devotion first thing in the morning. Sometimes the temptation to jump right in to the millions of things that need to be done is great, but if I can just give the Lord the "first fruits" of my day (so to speak), the peace I have is undeniable.

Elijah had a few miracles that were undeniable. In 1 Kings 17 we see that he is fed by ravens, who bring him bread and meat twice a day. I bet you that a cynic could say, "He just took the catch that those ravens were bringing back to their nest." That could be so. They could've been swiping bread from somewhere a couple times a day, and the meat could've been a live rabbit or something that Elijah then cooked. But that is the funny part about miracles. Yes, this is the living, breathing God of the universe stepping into time and making provision for one of His own. It is a flat-out miracle. The way it comes to be might just be within the realm of the possible, like birds getting their food taken by a new local resident.

I had a miracle like this happen to me (more than once). I used to watch a television evangelist on a regular basis -- a really good guy named James Robison (he's still on today with a show called Life Today, but my schedule doesn't make it convenient to tune in), who started advertising a big event a month or so in advance. It was funny, because first they advertised the date that a big announcement would be made. Finally it was announced that they were having a live conference that you could visit a local city and see a satellite feed on big screens. Right before I went to the Red Lion Hotel that evening, I knelt down and prayed, "Lord, please prepare my heart to receive." And do you know what I "heard" back, clear as any other thought in my head? "Okay. Prepare your heart to give. Bring your checkbook." I did not rejoice at this word from the Lord, as I was just a year into publishing Heaven's Metal Magazine, a college graduate working at Pizza Hut, but I obeyed nevertheless. The entire conference, which started out with some worship (it's weird lifting your hands in praise and worshipping when the worship leader is not in the room but on a giant tv screen...), but the entire purpose of the event was pretty much to share the vision of the organization and its plans for the next year or two and ask for money to pull it off. The way they did it, though, was cool; because they said, "As the Lord provides, I pledge such and such amount." There was an out, see. If God did not provide the extra income, I wouldn't pay it. I felt impressed to pledge $100 (which was a big deal on my income), and I wrote a check for $12 that night, knowing that if the Lord provided, the other $88 would be paid in the future. Two days later I got a job at a bank, that paid almost twice as much as my Pizza Hut cook salary. A day or two after that my rent (for a one bedroom apartment) went down from $275 to $210 (oh, for those days to be back again in Austin...). That was so cool. I had heard "stupid" stories like that before from "testimonies" on tv about people giving and seeing the Lord provide, but now it had happened to me.

Elijah saw a few other miracles with his time in Zarephath. He stayed with a widow who was at her wit's end (actually, she was about to go home and prepare a "final meal" for her and her son). God caused it so that her flour and jar of oil never went dry as long as Elijah's prophecy of no rain was in effect. This was an every day, recurring miracle. At another point this lady's son was about to die. Elijah took him up into the boy's room and prayed and he lay his body on top of the boy's three times, asking the Lord for healing. This was the "Old Testament God," you see -- not the "New Testament miracle-performing Jesus." But God healed the boy. How cool was it for Elijah to live those adventurous times. Were they easy? Did he have doubts at times? Was he human, yet God worked miracles through him? Interesting.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at February 23, 2005 07:52 AM