Miraculous Expectation
I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
Jeremiah 32:27
What are your expectations when it comes to God and His miracles? I think we all can get stuck in certain incomplete stances when it comes to our expectations of miracles. People land all over the spectrum of faith here. Some people may choose not to believe in the miraculous. Some may live on the opposite side blindly expecting every good thing to come their way as long as they just believe while others may find themselves somewhere in the middle, struggling to know if they should let their faith extend in various circumstances to trust for a miracle.
I think there is potential for a flawed outlook on the miraculous if we are simply looking for miracles just to make life be what we want it to be or to be what we think our life should be like, as if we should have a standard of what life “should be like”.
Here is what I want to challenge you with: Expect God to be true to His character. You know what we can always expect? We can ALWAYS expect, count on, and depend on God to be God. He will never not be Himself!
Now, to be clear, I am not going to promise you a life of ease and smooth sailing ahead without any surprises, bumps, cliffs, or mountains along the way. In fact, I can pretty much promise that hard times will come.
So what’s the point? How does our expectation for God being Himself and doing miraculous things in our lives tie into this? Simply put: God is going to be right there with you in the midst of those hard times. We can place our hope in Him not because He makes life blindly navigable but because when hard times hit, He knows how to help us take the right steps and make the right turns on the road of life.
Consider the nation of Israel. They were enslaved to Egypt. It was miserable, they were mistreated, they were unhappy. God brought Moses up to advocate to Pharaoh on their behalf. God brought multiple plagues to get Pharaoh to release Israel from slavery and bondage. Pharaoh would give lip service and say “OK, OK” but as soon as the plague was lifted, he would go right back into being the way he was previously. One day, God took all of the first born of Egypt but passed over the families of the nation of Israel and spared their lives.
Pharaoh finally stepped back and let them go. Later, though, he changed his mind and chased after them. Cue the Israelites complaints: “We would have been better off slaves in Egypt than to be dead in the desert.
Then came the miraculous. Moses had an expectation for God to be God here and that is exactly what happened.
13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Exodus 14:13-14
The nation of Israel here was faced with a seemingly impossible situation: death or death. Either Egypt catches up and kills them all or brings them back as slaves or they hope the road ahead doesn’t lead to their demise either.
What does God do? He makes a way. It surely isn’t what any of the Israelites would have noted as their expectation. But Moses knew God would make a path. And He did, right down the middle of the sea.
Moses demonstrated some amazing faith here about trusting God for a miracle. He didn’t step out and say “This is what God has to do in our situation”. Nope, instead His heart said “I know God will do something.”
Simply put: Moses trusted that God would be… well, God.
My point here isn’t to try and say that everything turns out to be something beautiful, good and rewarding in the moment. Some things are just plain hard and painful. While that pain is at times inevitable, what’s beautiful about it is that God is right there to comfort us and guide us through any and all circumstances.
So whatever you’re facing or struggling with, remember that you can count on God to be Himself, true to His character. He will always deliver on that promise. He’ll comfort you in painful times, give you vision and wisdom for how to navigate the road your on and will ALWAYS be there, right by your side.