Miracles

I like miracles, and I felt like sharing a miracle story, well there is actually 2 in here, and a lesson I learned as well...

In Brazil I got bad food poisoning. I was on the toilet and puking all night. I woke up the next morning a wreck. I was on a missions trip in which we played basketball against the pro teams in Sao Paulo in the evenings and did camps for kids in the mornings. Anyways, the leader saw me and told me to go back to my room and sleep, because I looked like a mess. I was really happy when he said this a was going to agree with him, when out of my mouth came, I'll wait till after Bible Study. These were not the words I was trying to say. Whatever though.

At the end of Bible Study the leader prayed that any evil spirits hampering what we were doing in Sao Paulo, would be rebuked in Jesus name. Right as he said that I felt my stomach turn. It was quite an interesting feeling. It was actually a turning feeling. Anyway, I was completely better. Not sick at all. I had a great day and rest of the trip completely healthy and was one of the only ones not to get sick once we arrived home. God just completely healed me.

The next year I went to Haiti. I once again got really bad stomach sickness. This time I wasn't puking, but I was only the toilet alot. While on the toilet I said, "God you healed me in Brazil, you can do it here too." I should have stopped there, but I was dumb and continued, "When I'm with the kids let me be healthy, I don't care about the other time." This was really dumb of me to add this. Cause you know what, God answered my prayer. Whenever I was with the kids I was fine and had no stomach issues where I needed to run to the washroom. I wasn't really sick at all. Then whenever I was done and by myself I ended up on the toilet. Turns out I did care about the times I wasn't with the kids.

Now I should've just prayed again and been totally healed, but I really didn't believe in healing all that much. Surprising because God had healed me. But I guess it took awhile for that fact to grow on me. So the lesson I learned. When I pray I don't pray wimpy prayers. It says in the Bible that God can do exceedingly more than I could ever ask or think or even imagine. Im going to pray for total healing not partial. I'm going to pray for real. Pray for something that is at least hard for me to imagine, because God can do more than that. I'm not going to add those dumb sentences at the end of my prayers anymore either. God can do more than we could ever ask or think. Let's pray big prayers.

I'm holding a fundraiser for my friends in Haiti. It's dessert and coffee/tea at the Bessborough. Get all dressed up, have a good time, have cheesecake and support a worthy cause.

God "allowing" things to happen

When bad things happen on this earth and I say that it was definitely not God's will for that to happen, the common response is "but God allowed it to happen." I think however we have a messed up view or picture of this. I think the common view is that of the devil going up to God and being like, "Can I do this, Can I do that???" And we see God responding, "No you cannot do this, but I will allow you to do that." This however is not how things go down. This type of picture not only gives us the wrong picture of who God is, but it also puts all the blame on Him as well. This type of view of why bad things happen is not biblical.

God created the world in love, by Love, and for love. With love there is always choice. God created the world in such a way that humans have choice in how their world is shaped. With every decision we make we either invite heaven or hell into the situation. When we invite heaven it is because we believe God's word and are standing/acting on it. When we invite hell into the situation it is because we are relying on human wisdom over the word of God. Proverbs calls people who do this self-confident fools, "He who leans on, trusts in, and is confident of his own mind and heart is a [self-confident] fool, but he who walks in skillful and godly Wisdom shall be delivered (Proverbs 28:26)." When we act like self-confident fools we invite hell into our situation and give a place for the devil to steal, kill, and destroy.

God created the world with choice. He is not going to go back on His original plan because He declared His plan "very good" at the beginning of time (Genesis 1:31), and to go back on His original plan would take away our choice and therefore negate love. Love is the very reason we were created. God will not take away the very purpose of our being created, that is why He completely redeemed us from the curse and has made a way for us to live in complete victory on earth as it is in heaven.

God quote unquote "allows" things that are not His will to happen because He created the world with choice. The more we individually choose to invite hell into our lives, and the more we collectively choose to invite hell into our world, the more place we are giving the devil to steal, kill, and destroy. God is not the one giving place to the devil in our lives, we are. Thank God we have been redeemed and we have been given the power by God to resist the devil and live with the reality of heaven pouring into our lives. With Life pouring into our lives. We have a choice. We can invite death or we can invite Life into our lives. The more we invite Life into our lives, the more we are individually/collectively giving place to God to infuse us with His life. We can live life abundantly and the devil will have no power to stop us for the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against Jesus.