Natural Miracles

Isaiah 38:9-21 9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery: 10 said,
"In the middle of my life
I am to enter the gates of Sheol;
I am to be deprived of the rest of my years."
11 I said, "I will not see the LORD,
The LORD in the land of the living;
I will look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.
12 "Like a shepherd's tent my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me;
As a weaver I rolled up my life
He cuts me off from the loom;
From day until night You make an end of me.
13 "I composed my soul until morning.
Like a lion--so He breaks all my bones,
From day until night You make an end of me.
14"Like a swallow, like a crane, so I twitter;
I moan like a dove;
My eyes look wistfully to the heights;
O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security.
15 "What shall I say?
For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it;
I will wander about all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.
16 "O Lord, by these things men live,
And in all these is the life of my spirit;
O restore me to health and let me live!
17 "Lo, for my own welfare I had great bitterness;
It is You who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness,
For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
18 "For Sheol cannot thank You,
Death cannot praise You;
Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.
19 "It is the living who give thanks to You, as I do today;
A father tells his sons about Your faithfulness.
20 "The LORD will surely save me;
So we will play my songs on stringed instruments
All the days of our life at the house of the LORD."
21 Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover."


I have seen supernatural miracles that have come from my seeking God. My sweetheart is alive today as a result of a supernatural miracle God did for her by giving me a word about her having a tubal pregnancy. I have been close with those who have witnessed a consistent pattern of miracles in their lives. I believe in the supernatural work of God. One of my best friends prayed for a girl who was born blind and she saw perfectly.

I knew many people who were healed when Oral Roberts laid hands on them.

I was in several services where God used Kathryn Kulman to heal many including me.

What I am saying here does not downplay the reality of God's supernatural work.

I have also seen that placing an emphasis on the supernatural can diminish the wonder of God working through natural means.

I have seen people die as a result of coming to believe that the only way God works is supernaturally.

A pastoral couple we knew were preaching this and as a result their congregation abandoned any kind of medical care. They let one woman hemorrhage to death in child birth. They kept her dead body hidden for three days believe God would raise her from the dead. They were eventually charged and convicted for a felony offense. Others in their congregation allowed for their children to suffer with all kinds of problems that could have been avoided. This was not the only group that we have seen that have followed this thought that God's only work is in the supernatural realm.

The story of Hezekiah gives a wonderful example of the interplay of the supernatural and natural workings of God.  Hezekiah was one of the most faithful kings to God in the Bible. He got very sick with some kind of a skin lesion. He summoned Isaiah the prophet for help. Isaiah told him he would die.

Hezekiah cried out to God and God told Isaiah to go back and tell him he was going to live after all. Hezekiah asked for a sign that he would live. He requested that the sun's shadow would go backward on a set of stairs that seemed to have acted like a sun clock. God did this supernatural miracle for him. Then we see that the actual healing involved Isaiah making a medicinal substance and placing it on the boil which brought about his healing.

That was very much what happened for me with Carie. God told me she had a tubal pregnancy when she first got sick with what she thought was the flu. We did not even know she was pregnant at the time. He told me it again when she passed out in our home four days later  He said it again after the doctor did an ultra sound and determined, so he thought, that she was pregnant and the baby was in the proper place.

When they could not stabilize her and she was near death I again heard Jesus say, "She has a tubal pregnancy." I again told the doctor and because I did he did another kind of test with a machine that gave a better picture.

Four hours later he came out of the operating room with the wonderful news that she was going to live and that she had bled internally for four days losing over half her blood from a tubal pregnancy.

The word was supernatural. The operation to save her life was natural. Both worked together to save her life. 

We need to understand that however God chooses to work we are to be thankful and thrilled that He helps us. 

We do not need to limit God in any way. That is the essence of the third temptation of Jesus - Testing God. 

Matthew 4:5-7 Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, 'HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU'; and 'ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'" 7 Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, 'YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

We know Jesus could supernaturally provide food for us as he did with the feeding of the five thousand with a few loaves and fish.

We know Jesus could turn water into wine like he did at the wedding by the sea of Galilee.

But in most cases he uses the natural means to provide these things. 

THEY ARE NO LESS FROM GOD THAN IF HE HAD MADE THEM APPEAR BEFORE US SUPERNATURALLY.

This is the most important point. God is fully in every natural provision. It is His gift as much as the supernatural. 

A few months ago the men at our men's meeting prayed for me about my sleep. I have spent most of my life sleep deprived. It has made for wonderful quiet times over the years. I have not complained about it but it has been hard at times to fulfill all that I need to when I was so tired. 

A few days after they prayed I had a compression fracture of my spine that had no apparent cause. I was running and ended up in severe pain. I had fallen off my roof many years ago and broke my back then as well. Because I was younger they did not think to do a bone density test. This time they did and found that I have severe osteoporosis. The doctor commented that I had the bones of a seventy year old man. She put me on a high dose of vitamin D and calcium. 

Because I had severe allergies and asthma as a child, I spent most of my time indoors since when I went out and played in the grass or walked in the forest I got very ill. I grew to dislike even being outside. As a result my exposure to the sun has been very limited. I have been vitamin D deprived for most of my life, thus my problem with osteoporosis.

But the thing that I could most give thanks to God for my spinal fracture was after three or four days of taking the vitamin D I started to sleep through the whole night. I now live in a state of feeling rested all the time. Vitamin D deficiency is a cause of sleep deprivation.

I know that God answered my and my friend's prayers for a restoration of my sleep. He did it through very natural means but I know it was His gift to me.

How important that we pray. How important we believe. How important that we look for the answers to come - not only supernaturally - but in the natural realm.

George Washington Carver is one of my greatest heroes. He was a slave freed at the end of the civil war. He was enthralled with agriculture. His story is amazing and I can't share it all here. What I was thinking of today as I was meditating on the this I am putting down here is that God used him to feed the freed slaves in one of the darkest periods of their history.

He spent his days in what he called "God's Little Workshop" asking for God to show him how to help his fellow former slaves to be able to grow enough food on their substandard, small plots of land.

God did just that. He gave him wonderful insights which he often said came as impressions he knew were from God. But he also gained many from observation and trial and error. He was a scientist in every way but one who believed God spoke through the creation and supernaturally.

As a result of his work all agricultural science benefitted. Those who followed his principles prospered. Every time you eat peanut butter you are partaking of the wisdom God gave him since he was the one how found that this little plant that no one used was highly nutritious especially when made into a paste.

God has given us the natural world as a gift of His love. Every aspect of it is meant to be taken as such. We need to be looking constantly for Him to show us His natural miracles.