The Miracle of Faith

Recently, God has been teaching me about faith. Specifically, God has been speaking to my heart about the faith of Abraham. I have always believed that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or imagine, and deep in my heart, I hoped that He would do just that. I secretly hoped that God would "surprise" me by healing David, but I was not about to ask Him to do it. Simply believing that God was able seemed to be enough.

Over the past couple of weeks, the Spirit of God has gently shown me that my believing that He is able and my hoping that He might surprise me by doing something miraculous is not enough. For some reason, God is calling me and Tom to ask Him to miraculously heal David. It may sound silly, but for me, this is a huge step of faith. Why must I ask Him? Isn't God able to do whatever He pleases? What difference does it make if I ask?

I think that part of my unwillingness to ask God for a miracle was due to my unwillingness to be disappointed in God. If I put myself out there and ask for the impossible, what happens if God says no? I can believe in God’s goodness and accept the prospect that He may ordain our son’s life to be too short without understanding why, but I think that asking God for the impossible may stretch my ability to believe in God's goodness further than it ever has ever been stretched before.

I do not pretend to understand all that God is doing, but I know that I must obey. When God promised Abraham that he would become the father of many nations, Abraham believed and obeyed what God told him to do. God said, "Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars," even though such a promise seemed impossible! And Abraham's faith did not weaken even though he knew that he was too old to be a father and that Sarah, his wife, had never been able to bear children. Romans 4:18-19.

Abraham was absolutely convinced that God was able to do anything He promised. It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, though God had promised him, "Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted." Genesis 21:12. Abraham believed God who brings the dead back to life and who brings into existence what didn't exist before. Romans 4:17.

So, by faith, Tom and I are asking God to heal David "for nothing is impossible with God." Luke 1:37. I must be honest - this is very difficult for me. I want to understand it, to rationalize it and to somehow explain it to myself and others. I do not usually ask for things unless I am relatively certain that I will get them. I do not consider myself to be a miracle-prayer. Right or wrong, this is a big stretch for me.

But amidst all of my questions, I am certain of one thing: my failure to ask God for David's healing would be disobedience. While I do not understand why, I know without a doubt that He is telling me to ask. So, Tom and I are asking God to do something miraculous. We are asking our great God to bring healing to David's bones, to cause his bones to grow and to develop his lungs so that he is able to breathe on his own. We are asking God for the "impossible."

We are not asking because we are certain of the answer. We are asking because we trust our Father who is telling us to ask. We are asking for the miracle of faith.